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lABOUT i 
IFLORIDA S 




By 

L. H. CAMMACK 




Class C) ^r^ f 

Book ^ ^ Cv c ^ 

Copyright ]s'^__ . 



CQE)3UGHT DEPOSm 



WHAT ABOUT 
FLORIDA? 



BY 

L. H. CAMMACK 

li 




1916 

LAIRD & LEE, Inc. 

CHICAGO 






C^ 



Copyright 1916 
Bt Laird & Lee, Ino. 




JAN 10 1^17 

©Gi,A455064 



PREFATORY. 

Did you ever tour along an unknown country 
road, headed for a distant objective, run past the 
place where the roads forked, get ^ve or ten miles 
down the pike and then find that you were on the 
wrong road? You berated yourself for overlook- 
ing the guide post or maligned the officials for 
failing to post the road, and wearily retraced the 
way. Guide posts are useful institutions, when 
used. They save a world of gasoline and pro- 
fanity. 

The next thing to no guide post, and much more 
reprehensible, is the post that points in the wrong 
direction. 

For a long time there were no markers along the 
highway to Florida. Then individuals and organ- 
izations and promoting companies began erecting 
markers after their own styles, and these were fre- 
quently misleading. They caused many a traveler 
to make useless and costly detours, and had the 
road so littered with signs that the federal govern- 
ment had to take a hand in the interest of safe and 
sane travel. 

Our purpose is to merely mark out the road to 
Florida ; to indicate its superior points of vantage, 
and put bars across the road where there is a 

3 



4 PREFATORY 

chance for the thoughtless to run into the ditch. 
So many ludicrous stories have come back, and 
they have been so conflicting, that people would 
actually like to know whether it is a bonanza or a 
frost. We shall endeavor to answer the question 
in a plain and sensible manner, basing our con- 
clusions on known facts. L H C 



CONTENTS , 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I How Could Moses Decide ? 7 

II ''Grapevine News" 11 

III Leading Questions — Often Asked 17 

IV No Longer a Venture 23 

V The Lay of the Land 29 

VI Along the East Coast 34 

VII The West Coast 43 

VIII Dimensions, Distances and Data 56 

IX What the Soil Is Good For 70 

X That Fertilizer Question 81 

XI What Can Be Raised Profitably ? 88 

XII The Story of the Orange 100 

XIII The Growers Got Wise 106 

XIV Peaches Pay 108 

XV Other ''Best Sellers" 113 

XVI Stock Raising 120 

XVII The Everglades 126 

XVIII Ten Acres and Independence 133 

XIX The Automobilist's Dream 142 

XX The Booster Spirit 147 

XXI Florida's Call 155 

XXII "It's Up to You'' 169 



CHAPTER I. 

HOW COULD MOSES DECIDE? 

Put yourself in Moses' place. 

Caleb and Joshua, two of his most reliable 
scouts, had pussy-footed all over the land of Ca- 
naan for six weeks, taking a straw vote on the 
number of the Amalekites and how big they were. 
There were eight other scouts along. Over in 
Eschol county they did a little foraging. Exhibit 
A was a bunch of grapes that took two men to lift, 
and they were as big as a string of bananas. They 
filled their pockets with pomegranates and figs. 
The whole crowd admitted on the witness stand 
that Burbank, in his palmiest days, never saw such 
fruit. 

Caleb and Joshua voted to go right over and 
take the land — ^voted open ballot — on the table. 
They said it was Canaan for them. They liked 
grapes and had always wanted to live in a country 
where there was plenty of milk and honey. The 
milk flowed down the rivulets and the honey just 
naturally grew in the corners along the country 
road. 

How could Moses decide? 

The other eight were a lazy lot. They were 
afraid of work and did not intend to fight. Cold 
chills ran down their spinal columns every time 

7 



8 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

they thought of those big husky fellows that lived 
up at Anak. They admitted that they liked grapes, 
all right, and would certainly enjoy staking off a 
little claim in the neighborhood of Naboth's fruit 
farm, but they understood that the old man was 
one of the fussy kind and carried a Colt's 38 under 
his cloak. It was just like making a date with the 
undertaker to go over there, and they did not pro- 
pose to move. 

What could Moses do 1 He knew that Caleb and 
Joshua were square, and that it was a cinch to put 
the thing over; but the eight stand-patters had 
scared the folks so badly with their stories that he 
could not get a rising vote to go over and swat the 
Philistines. 

There they were, on the top of the hill, looking 
right down into a heavy laden vineyard, their 
mouths watering for grape juice, with a land 
grant from the highest authority, and yet they 
turned back north, hit a retreat, wired back home 
for transportation, lost their one good chance to 
succeed, and all because two sets of tourists down 
in Canaan could not agree on whether the country 
was ever going to amount to anything or not. 

You know the story, of course. Certainly you 
remember. You cannot say whether it was in Mr. 
McGuff ey 's reader or some other book, but a kindly 
looking, elderly lady called it to your attention 
years ago. Naturally one forgets many of these 
early teachings. 



HOW COULD MOSES DECIDE? 9 

It is a well authenticated story, all the same, and 
is as natural and human as if it had occurred only 
a year ago. People have not changed much in 
forty centuries. Some are naturally optimists and 
smilingly ask you to pass the cream. Others are 
by nature pessimists and suspiciously ask for the 
milk. 

Caleb and Joshua have been touring Florida, off 
and on, for two decades. They have been proverb- 
ial boosters. The stories that they have brought 
back of oranges and garden truck would do credit 
to a Washington correspondent writing back to 
his home newspaper about the activity of his fa- 
vorite congressman. 

** Shiver my timbers,'' says Caleb, *4f I did not 
see grape fruit trees down there that had four car 
loads of fruit on them, and there was not one fruit 
that was smaller than my head. ' ' Then Shaphat, 
who had trouble with every Pullman porter on the 
way down, comes back and says, **Yes, but you 
just naturally have to sit up with those grape fruit 
trees all spring, summer and fall to keep them 
alive. You have to pile fertilizer six feet deep 
around them, and then, nine chances out of ten, 
when you get a half-way crop, the price will be 
down and you have to feed them to the hogs." 

But Joshua says, **I never saw such beautiful 
tropical vegetation in my born days. It was sun- 
shiny all the time, although the folks wrote me 
from home that our water pipes had been frozen 



10 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

stiff for three weeks. ^' **Yes,*^ says grouchy old 
Aminiel, **but the mosquitoes nearly ate me alive, 
one night, and that rascally hotel proprietor 
wanted to charge me two bucks a day for a little 
room that would not have cost me over fifty cents 
in Terre Haute/' 

So it has gone for years. One traveler praises 
unstintedly. The other condemns unsparingly. 
Both cannot be right. Maybe both are wrong. 
Holy Writ assigns all men to places in the Ananias 
Club, but some of them get in by accident and 
some break in. 

Wliat is the real, actual Florida! It will be our 
aim to state the case as fairly as possible, from 
the common-sense, every-day standpoint. It will 
not be a compendium of statistics, but, rather, a 
birdseye view of Florida obtained from numerous 
trips and countless conversations with friends and 
foes in all walks of life. 



CHAPTER II. 



''grapevine news/' 



Of course you have had this experience many 
times. 

You sit down in the hotel office, or the Pullman 
car, or the park, and compose yourself for a quiet 
spell of mental relaxation. 

The unctuous looking stranger across the way 
glances amiably at you, coughs once or twice, then 
remarks on what a fine spell of weather we are 
having, and with little further prelude plunges 
into a spirited conversation on his pet theme. He 
begins by asking you if you have been to Florida, 
or intend going soon. As a necessary corollary he 
wants to know what you think of it. No ; that is 
wrong. He does not care a rap what you think of 
it. His burning desire is to tell you what he thinks 
of it. Then he plunges forward as long as you 
show an interest or ask a question. He dilates at 
length, illustrates profusely, and convinces himself 
firmly once more that he is right and that few 
persons have had the keen perception he has shown 
in digesting the case. 

Such opinions are just as interesting and usually 
as well founded as opinions regarding the foreign 

11 



12 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

policy of our last administration. They depend 
solely on the view point of the expounder. If he 
is favorable, chances are he will laud to the skies. 
If he was a doubter before he made the journey, 
probably every circumstance will but commend his 
judgment as previously formed. 

This relates to those who have actually set their 
feet in the sands, but the most pronounced views, 
the most oracular statements, pro and con, come 
from those who have never seen the St. Johns, or 
pulled oranges from a tree when the owner was 
not looking. 

We all get notions. We form quick opinions. We 
like to tell a good story. Our imaginations help 
wonderfully. 

Little wonder that Florida has been discussed in 
the past few years. A million people from the 
North have passed through Jacksonville, going 
and coming, in the past decade. A half million 
have considered Florida investments. A hundred 
thousand have bought without seeing. Many thou- 
sands have bought and moved to their possessions. 
Small wonder, then, that Florida has been the topic 
of discussion. 

There are those who, with a charming freedom 
born of a desire to make things sound interesting, 
and based on an odd bit of information gathered 
here and there, will assure you that Florida is an 
almost unbroken desert, with here and there a lit- 
tle oasis. They aver that it is a howling wilder- 



'' GRAPEVINE NEWS '' 13 

ness, an impenetrable swamp ; that the snakes and 
alligators hold high carnival around the few hum- 
ble homes that are builded on the sand heaps. And 
they are firm in the belief that the white sand 
which covers this southern peninsula as a mantle 
is devoid of fertility. 

On the other hand, people on pleasure bent burst 
from the confines of a stuffy office up north, take a 
short excursion, penetrate some of the better 
known resort districts of Florida, pull a few 
oranges, gather some flowers, listen to the birds, 
catch some fish, while away the hours in the balmy 
sunshine, and come back filled to the brim with 
roseate and highly colored visions of a miracle 
land, which make descriptions of Paradise look 
pale and faint and uninteresting. 

THE promoter's PARADISE. 

More insidious and more misleading than either 
of these is the shrewd promoter. He flourishes 
most generally in some metropolis of the north. 
Sometimes he has a brief residence in Florida, but 
this is only incidental, and not at all necessary to 
the part he is to play in his chosen enterprise. 

The promoter purchases, for a song, some large 
boundary of land, which may or may not be at- 
tractive to the eye or useful to the husbandman. 
He does not begin the cultivation and development 
of the land. No, he begins at the other end. He 
engages the most adept handlers of English, and 



14 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

stipulates that they must bring out all the pictur- 
esque, alluring, teasing, convincing and inviting 
adjectives in their repertoire, and these he masses 
in solid, glittering phalanx, in a gorgeous descrip- 
tion of his property. A brief inspection of these 
masterful word paintings will quickly convince the 
gentle reader that a new Arcadia has been dis- 
covered, that the beauties of the Orient, the wealth 
of the Indies, and all the good that humanity could 
desire, together with a life of indolence, ease and 
pleasure, is to be had by investing only a small 
sum in this southern paradise. 

He does not permit these delectable visions to 
be marred by commonplace printing or insufficient 
illustration. He employs the finest photographers 
and sends them on voyages of discovery. Wher- 
ever they can snatch a charming vision of heavy 
laden groves, no matter whose the groves may 
be, or a bit of seashore, or a cozy little lake or a 
woodland scene, or anything of beauty, they are 
instructed to snatch it and adapt it to their own 
needs. 

Then he employs the finest printers, the best 
color artists and the most expert engravers. Fol- 
lowing this, with wild abandon, he piles up statis- 
tics showing the abundance of the crops, the ease 
of production, and the stupendous dividends that 
can be made per acre, with only the slightest effort, 
and all these he couches in a charmingly written, 
beautifully illustrated booklet. This finds its way, 



'' GRAPEVINE NEWS '' 15 

naturally and easily into the homes of those who 
are restless, who weary of the things they are used 
to, who are enamored with the distant and 
unknown, who have impatiently born the long and 
rigorous winters, who have longed for perpetual 
summer, and who, finally, have found an answer to 
a long cherished dream. 

A CRUEL CHAPERON. 

Literature of this class, beautifully gotten up, 
but entirely misleading, has in the past been sent 
out by the car load, and has found ready readers. 
It has given a wholly erroneous view of the real 
and actual Florida to multitudes of people, and has 
extracted mints of money from those who read. 

This sort of public pillage has had a rude shock 
in the last few years. The Federal government 
had a large number of cases brought to its atten- 
tion, and a series of investigations were begun, 
leading, finally, to the arrest of a number of very 
smooth four-flushers who had fleeced citizens of 
the North in a most reckless manner. 

Some of these men now reside in Fort Leaven- 
worth, some in Atlanta, and others are appor- 
tioned to various institutions owned by the gov- 
ernment, where they have time to ponder over the 
error of their ways. 

The government has gone further than this. It 
has been so paternal in its interest in the welfare 
of the common people, and so anxious that they 



16 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

should not be misled by ingenious schemers, that 
it has undertaken the censorship of all printed 
matter relating to land in Florida, and the gifted 
word painter who would now induce his fellow citi- 
zen to invest in a sure thing is most careful to see 
that the statements he makes, the pictures he 
draws, and the statistics he offers in evidence abso- 
lutely line up with the truth as it exists. You can 
rely on present day Florida literature. 

This ruthless act on the part of the Federal gov- 
ernment has had a depressing influence upon some 
of the most beautiful and poetic descriptive lan- 
guage that this generation has seen. It has put 
some ambitious schemers out of commission. 

It has taken from the field of long distance real 
estate operations the blue print promoter and the 
smooth tongued persuader, but it has had the 
desirable effect of clearing up the atmosphere and 
of putting the sale of Florida lands and groves on 
a strictly business basis. 



CHAPTER in. 

LEADING QUESTIONS — OFTEN ASKED. 

What about Florida, after all! Is it an arid 
desert — a wilderness — an unending swamp, filled 
with loathsome reptiles! Is it a land of quag- 
mires, of pestilence, of disease breeding vapors? 
Does it abound in mosquitoes and insects, or is it a 
sunny paradise, where the great orb of day shines 
in undimmed splendor throughout the twelve 
months of .the year, bringing fruit and vine and 
flower to early maturity; where the song of the 
bird is sweet and joyous, its plumage daringly bril- 
liant, and where man may establish his palace or 
build his shack by the side of serene waters and 
may live his allotted years in peace and plenty? 

Is its soil so eternally an unbroken sheen of 
white, gleaming, brassy sand, so sterile that you 
can *^ hardly raise an umbrella on it," as some 
have scathingly said, or does this sand mantle, 
under the fructifying influence of the husband- 
man's care, the spontaneous warmth of the genial 
sun, and the torrential rain, bring forth fruit and 
vine and flower, the massive pine, the gnarled cy- 
press, the wide reaching oak in prodigal growth? 

Is this great southern empire, that has com- 
manded such searching attention for two decades 

17 



18 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

from the people of a continent, simply the play- 
thing of the promoter, the schemer, the organizer, 
the publicist, the designer, or is it, in reality, the 
lifetime opportunity for the man in the crowded 
north and east and west, to go to a new country, 
to buy productive soil, to raise paying crops, to 
market them to advantage, to establish his home, 
to rear his children, to carve out his fortune, and 
to become independent and prosperous? 

Will the waste lands, the swamps, the cypress 
ponds, the low grounds be drained and dried and 
cultivated and rendered habitable, or will they 
remain throughout the years a menace to those who 
invade their boundaries? 

Does it take a ton of fertilizer to produce a ton 
of cane or cabbage or tomatoes or, can a man raise 
these things in Florida at about the same cost that 
attends their cultivation in Ohio or Virginia or 
Minnesota? 

Which set of witnesses shall we believe on the 
health question? Is Florida a land of mosquitoes, 
of sand flies, of malaria, and fever — is the air 
filled with noisome pestilence and heavy laden 
with the noxious odors of decaying vegetation, or 
is it a charmingly delightful, health giving region 
of bright sunshine, pure water, invigorating 
breezes? 

Is it so sizzling hot and stifling and enervating 
and humid throughout the long drawn out sum- 
mer months that life is unbearable and are the 



LEADING QUESTIONS 19 

winter months so interspersed with frost and 
freeze that vegetation is endangered and crops 
mined, or, shall we listen to the other seemingly 
credible witnesses who tell us, and prove by gov- 
ernment statistics, that the mean average smnmer 
temperature in Palm Beach is no higher than it is 
in New York City, that a case of sunstroke was 
never heard of in Florida, that cooling breezes 
waft across the peninsula from ocean to gulf and 
gulf to ocean, rendering the nights comfortable 
and tempering the heat of the midday sun, and 
that so far as cold is concerned, a freeze has not 
been known in thirty years and the few slight 
frosts that come in the wake of blizzards that have 
swept the northern states have no appreciable 
effect on growing crops, and actually help the 
oranges and grapefruit. 

Is the growth of the cities and towns ephemeral, 
transitory, spasmodic, temporary, or do we find 
the same strong municipalities, permanent indus- 
tries, modern city improvements, well constructed 
buildings, churches, schools, colleges, theatres, 
parks, and the same class of citizenship that we 
have in the oldest and most settled of the states? 

Is Florida a venture or a certainty? Is it purely 
a winter tourist proposition, where the grasping 
landlord may bleed the unsuspecting visitor, while 
cajoling him with the idea that he is warm and 
comfortable and having a jolly time? Is it senti- 
mental, or practical? 



20 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

DB LEON HAD HEARD STOEIES. 

It happened in 1533. 

The stories of Columbus' conquest had thrilled 
the world for a time and Columbus lay dead in 
an unmarked grave. 

The possessions of Spain, under Ferdinand and 
Isabella had extended until the sun never set on 
Spanish dominions. When they rested in the mar- 
velously beautiful Alhambra, they passed to King 
Charles, son of their only daughter, power and 
riches and territorial acquisitions that were the 
envy of the world. 

Juan Ponce, Knight of Leon, was a great favor- 
ite of the young King Charles. He was the Von 
Moltke who had successfully prosecuted the wars 
of the nation. He had won for the crown and the 
people triumphs in arms and treasures and landed 
possessions. He was rich beyond the reach of 
avarice. 

But he was old, and the king had just given him 
a young and beautiful wife. She was a dream, a 
vision, but he was old and decrepit, wrinkled and 
gray. He walked haltingly, heard with difficulty, 
and tottered about with faltering steps. 

Ponce De Leon had been with Columbus on his 
second trip of discovery. He had seen the un- 
known shores and had heard with beating heart 
of the wonders the land possessed. He had heard 
of miraculous springs and that there was one 



LEADING QUESTIONS 21 

great spring in some distant part of this unknown 
land, which, if one were to bathe, he would fling 
off the wrinkles and stiffness of age and from 
which he would come forth young and fresh and 
buoyant. The story allured him, held him, fasci- 
nated him, thrilled him. He had read of the impo- 
tent, the lame and the halt, who had dipped in that 
wondrous pool of Bethesda in old Jerusalem and 
had come forth whole. He decided to seek to the 
uttermost parts of the world for this fountain 
which could bring back the years that had been 
spent. 

King Charles readily granted him a charter to 
go in and possess any part of the new continent 
that his heart desired, for King Charles was a lib- 
eral monarch. A few million square miles more 
or less made no difference to him. We fight now 
over a line fence that is three feet over the mark 
more quickly than Charles would have fought over 
the entire southern half of the United States. 

De Leon organized his expedition, he spent a 
fortune in fitting it out. They traversed the seas 
for a year, finally sighting the shores of the conti- 
nent they sought. They approached carefully, for 
there were men of an unknown tribe in sight. They 
landed at St. Augustine, planted the banner of 
Charles in the sand and took the country in the 
name of their monarch. Then they began search 
for the miraculous fountain of youth. Borne on 
the shoulders of his faithful band of intruders De 



22 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

Leon penetrated the wilds of Florida. It was De 
Leon and his Spaniard followers who gave the 
state its name. It was Easter Day when they 
landed. All the region was ablaze with the glory 
of early spring. Flowers were everywhere. So 
they named the new country Florida, meaning in 
Spanish, **the land of flowers.^' 

The Spaniards looked long and earnestly for 
the great spring. The Indians grew suspicions. 
They misdirected them, and finally one of them 
got behind a convenient tree and shot an arrow 
at De Leon. He was so badly injured that medical 
help was necessary and none was to be had nearer 
than Cuba. 

Juan Ponce, Knight of Leon, died. The Span- 
iards declared the new found country their own 
by right of discovery. They built their fort and 
named their city St. Augustine, and the ancient 
fort and morass stand today much as they left it. 

Florida was found and named and first occu- 
pied by adventurers. They were looking for gold 
and not for a place to raise vegetables. The foun- 
tain they sought was there, and is there still. It 
does not restore. It preserves. 



CHAPTER IV. 



NO LONGEE A VENTURE. 



Florida has passed the realm of the speculative. 
It is no longer a venture. 

You do not doubt the stability of Ohio, though 
it has not been many years since California 
passed through the same inquisition that is now on 
concerning Florida. Still, there was a time when 
Ohio was only a part of the great Uncharted 
Northwest Territory. The man from Massachu- 
setts who gathered his worldly possessions about 
him, placed his little family in a prairie schooner 
and started out bravely, only a little over a hun- 
dred years ago, to penetrate the wilds of Ohio, had 
greater forebodings and bade adieu to his friends 
with more pronounced tremor in his voice than 
does the hardy homeseeker now who starts to the 
regions beyond Nome. 

Ohio was a venture. California was a venture. 
Kansas was a venture. Texas was a venture. They 
all made good. They made good because they 
had within themselves all the natural resources to 
make and keep life, and all they needed was the 
magic touch of human intellect and toil to turn 
them into the dwelling places of a strong and self 
reliant people. 

23 



24 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

The lure of gold first brought attention to the 
Golden Gate. The lure of the gold in the orange 
has not been so bright but it has attracted the eye 
of many who now make their home below the 27th 
parallel. 

While the great West was being peopled with 
the hardier multitudes, and the pathways of civil- 
ization were being worn from the Atlantic beyond 
the Rockies, Florida had scant attention, because 
transportation was limited and uncertain and 
Chambers of Commerce and Boosters had not been 
discovered. 

During this period life was so easy, and the 
means of subsistence so ready at hand that the 
families who had migrated and formed colonies in 
the more inviting spots were not nerved to ambi- 
tion and energy. There grew up a languid, easy 
going, self satisfied. God-fearing, normal popula- 
tion, which planted groves, and engaged in the 
limited and easily satisfied culture of the soil. 

Florida of today has passed any suggestion of 
self satisfied, monotonous cultivation of a few 
indigenous products. 

Thousands of ambitious, sturdy, industrious, 
educated farmers, business men, mechanics, pro- 
fessional men and laborers have, in the past quar- 
ter of a century, been lured to the extreme South 
by stories of perennial sunshine, a delightful cli- 
mate, and the chances for forging ahead in a new 
country. These are now the old settlers. They 



NO LONGER A VENTURE 25 

are an integral part of the state as a whole. They 
have adopted it in every particular. They have 
widened and broadened the scope of agriculture, 
have experimented and studied the soil, have 
sought new markets, have produced best sellers. 
They have joined hands with the original settlers 
and together they have brought forth an output 
that commands the attention of metropolitan mar- 
kets, and this at a time when the northern pro- 
ducer is shut off from productive work by snow 
and sleet and ice. 

If the Florida of today has passed the point of 
adventure and speculation into the region of cer- 
tainty and known results in fruit growing, garden- 
ing and general farming, so that the statistician 
can tell you how maay hundreds of car-loads of 
oranges and grapefruit, watermelons and straw- 
berries and potatoes are sent to the central mar- 
kets together with price paid for these commodi- 
ties, and if the bank clearings and deposits in the 
cities of Florida show that great sums of cold cash 
come back to Florida in exchange for her product, 
then we might easily come to the conclusion that 
Florida production is a known factor from the 
standpoint of the farmer. 

But Florida has another asset that is prospect- 
ively so great as to be beyond reasonable compu- 
tation. There is scarcely a man in forty thickly 
settled states North, who, when he has gotten his 
stake, and comes to the time when he feels like 



26 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

sitting back and resting, does not dream of a little 
grove and a green lawn, a vine-covered cottage, 
and a motorboat in some quasi fairy land, where 
he may spend his declining years in comfort, and 
he inevitably turns either to Florida or California. 
The magic city of Los Angeles has been peopled 
in a few years largely by this class, who, having 
gotten ahead of the game, feel that they are justi- 
fied in living where the weather is always temper- 
ate. It is from this same class that the great 
interest in Florida's growth has in recent years 
come. They translate the dream of years into a 
trip to Florida. They find the nook they are look- 
ing for. It may be along the Indian River, on the 
East coast, possibly as far South as Miami, or 
they may go into the lake region of Polk or 
Orange, or Lake County or they may find a grove 
or a pleasing situation on the gulf, but at any rate 
they come to stay. To men of this character, a 
life of indolence and uselessness is not attractive. 
They are not willing to sit supinely down and fold 
their hands, devoid of any serious care. They 
prefer a little orange grove or garden, or some- 
times busy themselves with general farming. At 
any rate while the hands are busy the heart is 
happy, and they take up life with new zest and 
fervor, and it is easily demonstrable that the span 
of life for such as make their homes under such 
surroundings and amid such ideal conditions, is 
lengthened many years. 



NO LONGER A VENTURE 27 

Then from the standpoint of the tourist, Florida 
is indeed the land of opportunity. In the course 
of the year every man has a vacation, or at any 
rate, he is entitled to one. Some go to the moun- 
tains or to the sea shore during the heated months, 
but there is an astonishingly large and constantly 
increasing multitude who take a few weeks off 
during the extreme cold weather and fly to Flori- 
da. It used to be the pastime of the very rich and 
the millionaire class alone were able to patronize 
the palatial winter resorts, but moderate railroad 
fare and moderate priced hotels have lured great 
multitudes of people in ordinary circumstances to 
while away a few weeks in any one of a hundred 
places in Florida, and they find that this sort of a 
vacation is no more costly than the average beach 
trip of the Summer. 

The tourist business, that is, the entertaining 
of tourists at hotels and boarding houses and 
the money that they scatter is one of the most 
important sources of income to Florida, arid the 
sum total of these expenditures every season will 
run up into the millions. 

One illustration alone will answer. St. Peters- 
burg is a hustling, rapidly building little city on 
the "West coast, twenty miles across the bay from 
Tampa. This little city is accredited with a sum- 
mer population of about 10,000. Its winter popu- 
lation from October to May will frequently run 
30,000. It has more than one hundred excellent 



28 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

hotels, and an army of good boarding and rooming 
houses. It may readily be seen that if one little 
city entertains twenty thousand guests for weeks 
and months at a time in a single season, that this 
one source of income throughout the State of 
Florida is too important to be overlooked. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE LAY OF THE LAND. 



If 500,000 of our fellow citizens, througli the 
influence of some great advertising campaign, 
were to decide to migrate to Panama or Brazil, 
and if varying reports of these countries would 
come back, some violently favoring them, some 
insistently disapproving, we take it that a friendly 
viewpoint, giving the general characteristics, 
would be worth while. 

It would not be particularly illuminating to the 
prospective tourist, the visitor, or the investor, to 
know that on a given acre in a certain province in 
Brazil a man had been able to raise a thousand 
dollars' worth of cabbage in a season, or that on 
another acre in another province five hundred dol- 
lars ' worth of hemp had been produced. It would 
be more satisfactory to turn one's glasses on the 
country as a whole, to know the general lines, the 
topography, and where the high points of culti- 
vation had been reached. The geography of any 
country is the first thing you want to know 
about it. 

One is always reminded of the old common 
school reader story of the five blind men who first 
went to see the elephant, and how each gave his 

29 



30 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

opinion of the animal from the part he struck. 
The first bolted up against the broad side of the 
monster and declared that the elephant was very- 
like a stone wall. The second got hold of the trunk 
and declared the elephant was very like a tree. 
The third grabbed the tail and decided the beast 
was very like a rope, and so on. Each formed his 
opinion from a certain angle, and while each was 
right, all were wrong. 

Owing to its location and the way the railroads 
run, Jacksonville is the big front gate of Florida. 
Of course you can get into the state other ways, 
but from the standpoint of practical travel, you 
enter the state at Jacksonville. The roads enter- 
ing this busy city have modern equipment and 
make good time from a number of the leading cen- 
ters of the North. 

We will take a glance at the state. 

You pull into the terminal station at Jackson- 
ville about 8 o'clock in the morning. Multitudes 
are leaving the various trains at the same time. 
Outside there is an army of 'busses and automo- 
biles lined up. Most of the former are manned 
by the obsequious ^^cullud'' driver, relic of the 
ante bellum days, who, with a great show of cour- 
tesy and submission to your wishes, invites you 
to enter his cab and be taken to any part of the 
city. 

If you have had the idea that you are going into 
a proverbially sleepy and sluggish little Southern 



THE LAY OF THE LAND 31 

city where the colonels lounge around in luxurious 
ease, forget it. Jacksonville is a busy, bustling, 
energetic, thriving, thoroughly modern city with 
wide streets, impressive buildings, fine hotels, 
thorough street car equipment, cluster light sys- 
tem, and has an air of business that stamps it with 
the spirit of progressiveness. It has immense 
docks from which the largest vessels clear for 
points along the Atlantic Coast for South America 
and many European countries. When you register 
at the Seminole or the Mason, or the Windsor, or 
the Burbridge, or twenty-five other elegantly ap- 
pointed hostelries, the service is modern and 
exacting as the most famous hotels of New York, 
Chicago, or Washington. 

Thousands of well dressed, prosperous looking 
strangers throng the streets of the city at nearly 
all seasons of the year. This is their first stopping 
place on the trip further South, and many make 
this the end of their journey, attracted by the cos- 
mopolitan life, the pleasing sights and the busy 
surroundings at Jacksonville. 

There are about 75,000 people. The streets are 
lined, in the residence districts with artistic 
homes, and everywhere there is the tropic verdure, 
gorgeous flowers, majestic palms, graceful mag- 
nolias, and the most pleasing forms of floral orna- 
mentation. The parks are beautifully kept. The 
sixteen banks in Jacksonville show resources of 
twenty-two million dollars, a mark that is not 



32 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

readied by many cities of the country with three 
times the population. 

Jacksonville is on majestic St. John's River, 
seventeen miles from the Atlantic Coast with a 
thirty-foot channel admitting entrance to the 
largest vessels. Innumerable water craft come 
from all directions, laden with the products of 
grove and garden and mill and still, and fishing 
smacks are everywhere to be seen. It is a great 
distributing point for freight, and vessels of a 
dozen nationalities are always in port. 

It is a city of fine clubs and delightful social 
activities. Its people are well-to-do, and they en- 
joy life. Automobiles throng every thoroughfare, 
and long runs down the coast and down the river 
are the daily pleasures of myriads of autoists. 

There is nothing in the civic life of Jackson- 
ville, in its buildings, or its people to indicate a 
temporary, mushroom growth. Everything has a 
look of solidity. Its future, as a metropolis of the 
South, is certain and even its competitors grant 
that at its present rate of growth it will at no dis- 
tant day rival New Orleans. 

When you leave Jacksonville for a trip through 
the state, you have two alternatives — the East 
Coast or the West Coast. These are general terms 
only, for the West Coast is a big term if you take 
it all in, but West Coast is the term generally 
applied to all the lower peninsula, except the land 
along the Atlantic Ocean. 



THE LAY OF THE LAND 33 

Thirty years ago two monied pioneers started 
developments in Florida. H. B. Plant on the West 
Coast and Henry Flagler on the East Coast. There 
was a great deal of rivalry between these multi- 
millionaries, sometimes friendly and sometimes 
bitter. They were both builders and both enthu- 
siasts. Flagler outlived Plant many years, and 
accomplished a more spectacular feat in the com- 
pletion of his overseas railroad ; but Plant laid the 
foundation for the later prosperity of the Gulf 
Coast, built mammoth hotels, like the Tampa Bay 
and the Bellevue, projected railroads, planted 
cities, and carved paths through unbroken wilder- 
nesses, blazing the way for a civilization that is 
wonderful. Flagler reared imperishable monu- 
ments, such as the church that bears his name at 
St. Augustine, and some of the great East Coast 
resort hotels, but his crowning achievement was 
the remarkable engineering feat of the railroad 
over the Keys to Key West. 

Both names are held in veneration by the people 
of the state, and both were so intensely practical 
and common sense that generations hence will ac- 
knowledge the value of their pioneer work. 



CHAPTER VI. 



ALONG THE EAST COAST. 



Staeting down tlie East Coast in a superbly 
appointed Florida East Coast train of yellow 
coaches and Pullmans, just as elegant as the 
effete East can boast, you have hardly crossed the 
majestic St. John's Eiver before you run into the 
flat, marshy-looking country that persists through- 
out the two hundred miles. In less than an hour 
you reach the Indian River, a wide body of water, 
separated for a hundred miles from the ocean by 
a line of narrow keys. 

St. Augustine is the first real stop of impor- 
tance. This ancient land-mark, the oldest in the 
United States, is a gem of antiquity. The streets 
are narrow and crooked, the buildings are hoary 
with age, and fossils and relics abound on every 
hand. The ancient fort and morass are still pre- 
served in much the same condition in which they 
were abandoned by the Spaniard. 

But St. Augustine is a curious mixture of 
ancient relics and modem perfection. The Alcazar 
and the Ponce de Leon are two of the most costly 
and delightfully appointed hotels in the country 
and they are thronged in season with the wealth 
and beauty and culture of the nation. The city, 

34 



THE LAY OF THE LAND 35 

itself is one great curio and in it are gathered 
shops and stores representing all nations. A street 
car ride takes the tourist across the Indian River 
with its myriad boats and launches, to the beach 
where usually throughout the winter months the 
water is thronged with bathers. 

Everything in America is so new and has so 
much the impression of the * Afresh paint'' sign 
that the sightseer takes with avidity to the antique, 
the fossilized, the old-fashioned, so St. Augustine 
not only furnishes interest to the patriot who 
stands awe-struck before the marks of the earliest 
settlers in the Western Hemisphere, but it satisfies 
the curiosity of that class of our citizens who have 
for years been gathering a little coin together in 
the soap business or the mine and then trotting 
over to Europe to look at the relics. 

St. Augustine revels in relics, but the reveling 
is tinged with commercialism. It vies with James- 
town and Plymouth as places of interest for the 
historian and the antiquarian. 

There is no scarcity of people down the East 
Coast for the local train makes one hundred and 
sixty stops between Jacksonville and Key West. 

The traveler is amazed at the imposing list of 
palatial hotels and attractive resorts that beckon 
him with tantalizing pictures of fairy land in a 
day's journey. 

His first impression on leaving Jacksonville or 
St. Augustine is depressing. The train will bowl 



36 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

along, forty miles an hour, for a seemingly inter- 
minable spell, while the view on each side from the 
car window reveals only an unbroken stretch of 
flat, saw grass land, punctuated with pines and 
interspersed with patches of palmetto, and every- 
where marshes and ponds and swamp. He will 
catch an occasional glimpse of a heron or some 
brilliantly plumaged tropical bird, and will be on 
the border of deciding that he has reached the 
uttermost limits of human habitation, when, sud- 
denly, he emerges into a miniature paradise of 
gorgeous flowers, well ordered groves, artistically 
decorated lawns, inviting little bungalows, preten- 
tious palaces, and will whirl by a velvety carpeted 
golf course, where gaily dressed men and women 
are intent on their sport, while in the background 
will loom up as if by miracle, one of the great white 
winter hotels. 

Florida is cultivated in spots. 

It is only natural that with an acreage of thirty- 
seven millions and a population of one million, 
these spots should be sparse. If Florida were as 
thickly settled as Pennsylvaina or New Jersey it 
would be so intensively and so extensively devel- 
oped that the average man would lose all taste for 
heaven and take Florida in preference. Where it 
has artistic culture there is no place this side of 
primeval Eden or the sunken gardens of ancient 
Babylon that can rival it in beauty. 

Where the magic touch of man's hand is not ia 



:a.long the east coast 37 

evidence it is strange and weird and wonderful, 
and the superlative beauty of these chance spots 
that are redeemed from the wilderness only indi- 
cate what may and will, one day, be done over the 
entire peninsula. 

But these great hotels which entice the rich and 
gay and frivolous, those overcome with ennui, 
those who are looking for change and adventure, 
those who are fleeing loneliness, are veritable 
dreams, reared, as they generally are with a nat- 
ural background of rank native floral and tropic 
luxuriance, and facing, as they usually do, some 
quiet stream or the restless surges of old ocean. 
Their courts are tropical bowers, redolent with 
balmy perfume, suffusing the senses with a mys- 
tic feeling of luxury and ease. Sunshine and glad- 
ness, flower and fruit and dreamy stream and all 
the radiant splendors of the semi tropics greet the 
spectator at every point. 

Passing prosaic Hastings, which is known only 
to fame as the southern home of the potato, the 
first of the famous resort towns is Ormond on the 
Halifax, with its pretentious and popular Hotel 
Ormond and its justly famous Ormond Beach, 
across the keys, the rendezvous for bathers, health 
hunters and pleasure seekers. 

The town of Ormond is crisp and fresh and pro- 
gressive and, like almost every municipality in the 
state, shows a sturdy and substantial growth. 

A little further down is Sea Breeze, with its 



38 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

rugged natural scenery and its world famous auto- 
mobile race course along the beach. This course 
extends for miles along the sandy beach, is firm, 
but slightly resistant, and is the delight of speed 
maniacs. 

Daytona, a popular resort city, full of big hotels 
and all of them full of guests, is an all-the-year 
town, with an increasingly large population of 
well to do people, who have settled permanently 
in this beautiful spot and are building a thriving 
city along the most modem lines. 

Daytona is on the famed Indian Eiver, which is 
not a river at all, but an arm of the sea. For over 
a hundred miles the keys along the coast protect 
the inner waters from the ocean and form a quiet 
river-like stream which is so much like a river that 
it has earned the name given it. Boats ply this 
stream, going as far as Jacksonville on the North. 
It is the great gathering place for fishing craft, 
sail boats and speedy motor boats, and races are 
frequent. 

Twenty miles further south is New Smyrna, a 
vigorous young city with many attractions for the 
tourist, not the least of which is the charming Co- 
ronado beach, just beyond the Indian River. 

Titusville, forty miles below, is a rapidly devel- 
oping commercial and agricultural center, with a 
wide stretch of the placid Indian River at its feet 
and direct rail connections with points on the West 
Coast. At Titusville large drainage and land 



ALONG THE EAST COAST 39 

recovery projects have been undertaken and wide 
areas of productive territory opened to cultivation. 

Drainage projects have been numerous and 
important at many points aldlag the East Coast, 
but at Sebastian, seventy miles south of Titusville, 
one of the most stupendous private reclamation 
plans has been under way for a number of years. 
The Felsmere Company, owning one hundred and 
eighteen thousand acres of flat, damp muck land, 
has invested nearly two million dollars in main 
and lateral drainage canals, has constructed a rail- 
road, built a town, and has opened up for cultiva- 
tion large boundaries of what is said to be unu- 
sually fertile and tillable muck land. 

Towns along the way are numerous, but Fort 
Pierce, St. Lucie and West Palm Beach are among 
the most prosperous and rapidly growing. Each 
has sprung up in the course of a few years and all 
of them have an increasing quota of winter 
visitors. 

At Palm Beach is located the Royal Poinciana, 
known as the largest hotel in the world, and uni- 
versally recognized as the greatest and gayest of 
winter tourist resorts. 

To this magnificent white palace come the elite 
of all lands, from January until March, for the 
social frivolities of the mid-winter season. This 
mammoth building, situated in the midst of a co- 
coanut grove, with graceful asphalt walks, bor- 
dered with gleaming poinciana and vari-colored 



40 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

flowers, with its lawns carpeted perennially with a 
rich and velvety covering of St. Lucia grass, is 
the recognized acme of luxury and elegance. Its 
majestic proportions, unequaled beauty, the char- 
acter of its thousands of guests, its dazzling social 
functions and its ultra-exclusiveness have almost 
won the favorable comment of many of our 
wealthy and wandering Anglo-maniacs and conti- 
nent trotters who admit that there is one place in 
America aristocratic enough for them to stop at. 

But Miami is the tropical mecca to which thou- 
sands of frost-bitten tourists journey each year, 
and it is one of the most conspicuous examples of 
modern city building to be seen in the south, or for 
that matter, in the entire country. The Royal 
Palm, the Halcyon and other richly appointed 
hotels are the chief attractions for visitors and 
are the objects of civic pride, but the municipality 
itself, the public buildings, the modern stores, the 
palatial homes, the thrift, the bank deposits, the 
surrounding fields and farms all mark this as one 
of the great coming centers of the extreme south. 

From Miami a fleet of fine passenger steamers 
clear for Nassau and the Bahamas. 

While Miami is a marvel of commercial activity 
and the number of spacious and imposing build- 
ings erected within the last few years shows the 
stability of the city itself, yet Miami is backed by 
a truck territory that produces wonders. Back of 
the city is a rich muck that is well adapted to vege- 



ALONG THE EAST COAST 41 

tables. From this comes enormous crops of toma- 
toes and other vegetables, which are shipped to the 
great markets in solid trains and are a determin- 
ing factor in the financial interests of the growing 
city. 

The territory around this one city is but an 
example of what is taking place all over Florida. 
Time was, not so many years ago, when the hardy 
pioneer merely skirted the shores of the Atlantic 
from St. Augustine south, and rarely penetrated a 
mile from the shore, except on hunting expeditions 
or when in search of adventure, but, gradually the 
waters that enveloped these low lying plains 
throughout the ages, are being driven back into 
the ocean, the low lands are being conquered, the 
jungle is being cleared, and behold, from the tan- 
gled wilderness has been wrested a million acres 
of soil as rich and fertile and responsive as the 
far famed valley of the Nile. 

From Miami and Fort Lauderdale are projected 
great drainage canals, capable of carrying on their 
bosoms great steamers, and these man-made water 
highways bear traffic to Lake Okechobee, from 
which navigation proceeds to Fort Myers and Kis- 
simmee and other places on the West Coast. Eail- 
roads across the same territory are being pro- 
jected and built, and, within a few years, the East 
Coast and the West Coast, the Atlantic and the 
Great Gulf, separated throughout unknown cen- 
turies by an impassable abyss of water and jungle 



42 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

and swamp grass, will be brought together, the 
intervening seas be drained and the soil be made 
of use to man. 

Key West is the final port of entry and railroad 
terminal at the southernmost extremity of the 
North American Continent. 

For decades it held supremacy as a cigar mak- 
ing center, and still is well known to smokers the 
country over, but the rise of the industry in other 
parts of Florida has drawn specific attention from 
Key West. 

Since the completion of the Florida East Coast 
Eailroad it has become a great shipping center and 
has intimate connection with the big volume of 
passenger and freight business transacted by the 
country with Cuba. It is but a night's ride from 
Havana. 

Although eighty miles of water intervene be- 
tween the shores of the two countries, the pas- 
senger can take his Pullman berth in Havana and 
stay in the same car until he reaches his destina- 
tion in Washington or New York. 



CHAPTER yil. 

THE WEST COAST. 

This coast is served by two main lines of rail- 
road, the Atlantic Coast Line, which penetrates 
almost every section in the state, and the Seaboard 
Air Line, which has numerous branches. 

Again it is well to call attention to the fact that 
the term **West Coast" applies in a general way 
to whatever is not on the East Coast. The long 
distance from Jacksonville directly west to Pensa- 
cola would hardly be, strictly speaking. West 
Coast territory. 

Let us digress far enough to prophesy that one 
day a great trunk line, originating in Chicago, or 
perhaps some other large Northwestern metropo- 
lis, will push its way through the Southern states 
and on down through Florida, irrespective of 
existing lines, bisecting the state. 

After an hour's run along the banks of the pic- 
turesque St. John's River on the Atlantic Coast 
Line Railroad, we reach Palatka, a prosperous city 
of ten thousand, with four railroads and large 
shipping and lumber interests. The St. John's is 
one of the few great rivers of the world, like the 
Amazon and the Nile, to flow north, and while it is 
fresh water and has a sluggish current, it is in 

43 



44 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

reality for the most of the distance from Jackson- 
ville to Sanf ord, only a big lake, reaching its maxi- 
mum width in the great inland sea thirty miles 
south of Palatka, known as Lake George, a body of 
water seven miles across and fifteen miles in length. 

Near Palatka, a company has set out a hundred 
thousand camphor trees, basing their venture on 
the long held theory that these would flourish and 
be remunerative in this genial soil and climate. The 
trees are not yet past the experimental stage but 
are robust and healthy in appearance, and, 
grouped around this agricultural arena, with gaze 
intently fixed on the outcome of this experiment, 
are a host of scientists and agriculturists who im- 
patiently await the outcome. If success crowns 
the effort, then a new vein of gold is found in 
Florida. In this section are also numerous large 
peach orchards which present a charming picture 
in March, when the whole landscape is covered 
with a glowing sheet of pink blossoms. 

De Land, fifty miles to the south, is a delightful 
little city, with giant live oaks shading its well 
kept streets and with elegant homes on either side. 
De Land is the seat of Stetson University, one of 
the foremost colleges of the South and named for 
its great benefactor, John B. Stetson. 

Just below is the thriving city of Sanford, 
which you enter through broad vegetable gardens. 

Sanford has become known as the center of a 
great celery and lettuce raising district, and the 



THE WEST COAST 45 

grower holds full sway. One feature that has con- 
tributed to the success of this territory is that 
Artesian wells — the waters strongly impregnated 
with sulphur — abound and a quick and permanent 
flow is easily secured. 

Four divisions of the Coast Line radiate from 
Sanford, giving it precedence as a railroad point, 
and this, also, is the head of regular steamboat 
travel on the St. John^s. 

A few miles west of Sanford begins the great 
lake country of Florida in the Highlands, some- 
times spoken of as the backbone of the State, one 
of the most delightful and healthful sections of 
the South. Most of the State is a uniform, level 
stretch, not many feet above sea level and much 
of it in need of drainage, but this region is not 
only three hundred feet above sea level, but it 
abounds in myriads of fresh water lakes, large 
and small, these having white sandy booms and 
beeches and the water being pure and drinkable. 

The prevalence of large lakes and their temper- 
ing effect on the atmosphere when there are sud- 
den changes, have also given this section prece- 
dence over the low country, because the occa- 
sional frost which nips the tenderer fruits and 
vegetables in other localities, loses its bite in this 
higher altitude and this fact is of commercial 
importance to growers. 

Throngs of winter visitors, especially those who 
love fishing, boating and bathing, select this region 



46 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

and they find ample accommodations at Tarares, 
Eustis, Clermont, Mt. Dora, and other near-by 
towns. At Clermont a great deevlopment has 
taken place under the charge of the Lake High- 
lands company, a clnb house, experiment farms, 
and quite a little city of bungalows has been built 
overlooking Lake Minnehaha. 

Just below Sanford is Orlando, the Beautiful. 
Orlando is far ahead of even the average aggres- 
sive Florida city. Nature began the work by plant- 
ing numerous little sparkling lakes right where 
the city was to be and man has taken advantage 
of these natural conditions and added ever-pleas- 
ing touch. Princely trees adorn the streets and 
parks, and surround the lakes. Swans float lazily 
in the limpid waters and the weird and fantastic 
Spanish moss festoons the trees. 

Kissimmee, twenty miles south, is a growing 
city, a clearing place for large lumber interests, 
and the point from which boats ply the Kissimmee 
Eiver to that great Inland Sea, Lake Okechobee, 
200 miles distant. 

Lakeland, just below, is one of the commercially 
promising cities of the Highland country. It is a 
husky town, full of ginger and pep, and the **get 
there" spirit, and an important terminal point 
for the Coast line. It is honey-combed with lakes, 
and these lakes are fast becoming centers of orna- 
mentation and development. 

From Lakeland, it is but 125 miles to Fort 



THE WEST COAST 47 

Myers, one of the Southernmost points reached by 
railroad on the Gulf Coast. Fort Myers, on the 
Caloosahatchie Eiver, profits by an ideal location 
and many attractions for winter visitors, not the 
least noted of whom is Thomas A. Edison, who 
makes his permanent winter home at this place, in 
a villa surrounded by royal palms. 

Tampa is an aggressively active city, and has 
had a spectacular growth, the beginning of which 
may be dated to the Spanish- American war. Be- 
fore that time it was simply a haphazard collection 
of common-place houses, thrown together at ran- 
dom, without aim or ideal. With public attention 
focused on Tampa, and with growing shipping in- 
terests, Tampa began to round into form soon 
after the Spanish-American war, and has made 
great strides ever since. It has seventy thousand 
people, including its environs at Ybor City and 
West Tampa. A large number of these are 
Cubans and Spaniards, attracted hither by the all- 
important cigar business, for Tampa holds the 
world's record in the manufacture of high-grade 
cigars, averaging almost a million cigars a day, 
all of them hand-made, all of them from selected 
tobaccos, and the price of many running as high 
as fifty cents and one dollar each. 

To the traveler and the sightseer it is known 
for the celebrated Tampa Bay Hotel, a magnificent 
Moorish palace, erected and lavishly furnished by 
Plant at a cost of $3,000,000 and later sold to the 



48 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

city for a nominal sum. This unique and massive 
structure with its artistic setting of palms and 
tropical plants, and its picturesque location, over- 
looking the river and the Bay, forms one of the 
most charming pictures in all the Southland. 

But Tampa has all the self -relying qualities, the 
vim, the energy, the foresight, the spunk, to make 
a great city. For instance, a million dollars are 
now being spent for hard roads, a municipal hall 
has been erected at a cost of two hundred and 
seventy-five thousand dollars. Harbor improve- 
ments have run into the millions, and the estuary 
project is one of the most stupendous on any 
coast. Tampa not only entertains a large num- 
ber of the winter visitors, but its activities are 
perennial. Exports are heavy, owing to the tre- 
mendous tonnage of phosphates, lumber, resin 
and other natural products shipped from the near- 
by counties. It is known as a $38,000,000 port. 

A twenty-mile boat ride down the bay brings 
the visitor to that magic city, St. Petersburg, one 
of the popular gathering places on the "West Coast 
for winter tourists. Along the docks, long rows 
of anglers can always be seen, trying to beguile 
the fish, while, hovering about, as tame as barn- 
yard fowls, are hundreds of somber looking peli- 
cans, and, soaring above, myriads of sea gulls. 

The sun always shines here, or at least it is so 
regular that one of the live wire local dailies has 
had a standing offer for years, to give, free, its en- 



THE WEST COAST 49 

tire edition every day the sun fails to beam on the 
city. Last year the publisher gave away his paper 
eleven times. 

With Tampa as a center, a circle drawn forty 
miles takes in a number of important and fast- 
developing points, and this imaginary circle will 
include a region which, on account of its natural 
scenic beauty, its coast line, its bays, bayous, keys, 
beeches, its mild and healthful climate, its produc- 
tivity and varied resources, will one day soon be 
one of the most populous, popular and wealthy 
sections of the United States. 

Within this circle, only a few miles North, are 
the greatest phosphate beds of the world. 

Within this circle are little keys and islands on 
which rich men will establish their castles, and in 
regal splendor reign over their miniature princi- 
palities. 

Within this circle is the rich Manatee country, 
a vast domain weighted down with groves and gar- 
dens, and down the coast thriving municipalities 
such as Bradentown, Manatee, Palmetto and Sara- 
sota, compact, well ordered, booming little cities, 
while great plantations and estates are being 
brought under cultivation, and such nationally 
known names as the Palmers, the Einglings, and 
others, stand out in bold relief. 

In the same circle is Clearwater with its spec- 
tacular developments of a decade, and its impres- 
sive Bellevue Hotel, and Tarpon Springs with its 



50 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

picturesque bayous, its palatial homes, and its 
unique flotilla of Greek vessels engaged in the 
sponge industry. 

It is only a prophecy, but a well founded one, 
that Tampa with its strategic location, its estuary^ 
its thirty-foot channel to the sea, its increasing 
volume of imports and exports, its background 
of phosphates and timber, and the new field opened 
by the Panama Canal, and the South American 
trade made possible by the world war, will grow so 
rapidly in importance as a port of entry and a ter- 
minal that it will out-distance all competitors on 
Southern coasts. 

The Seaboard Air Line Railroad, the most di- 
rect line from Tampa to Jacksonville, has played 
a conspicuous part in opening up Central Florida, 
and along its line are many important towns. 

Ocala, in Marion County is a well built and a 
wide-awake city of nearly ten thousand, sur- 
rounded by a prosperous agricultural region, and 
on the edge of a large phosphate belt. 

Near Ocala is the renowned Silver Spring, one 
of nature 's wonders, a mineral spring of extraor- 
dinary transparency, bubbling up out of the earth 
with a flow of 368,900 gallons a minute, and of 
such volume that large steamers coming up the 
Oklawaha River, to this, its fountain head, turn in 
the spring and start on their down river jour- 
ney. 

The spring is deep, so deep that no diver has 



THE WEST COAST 51 

essayed to explore its bottom, but so wondrously 
lucid that small coins or other bright objects show 
clearly a hundred or more feet below, and the re- 
fraction of the sun's rays, and the lens like effect 
of so deep an abyss, give to fish playing around in 
the unknown recesses of the pool, distorted, fan- 
tastic and magical shapes and colors. 

For generations this striking natural phenome- 
non has exercised a strong influence over the imag- 
inations of men and has been a source of interest 
and deep study to scientists. 

There is good reason to believe that the fame 
of some such Spring as this, either the Silver 
Spring, or a similar one at Juliette, or the noted 
Sulphur Springs at Tampa, carried by the In- 
dians, and by them transmitted in tempting story 
form to the Spaniards, first induced Ponce de Leon 
to explore the interior of Florida in search of 
the illusive Fountain of Youth. 

One of the delightsome sensations in inter-Flor- 
ida travel is the trip from Silver Springs down the 
winding and erratic Oklawaha to the St. Johns 
and thence to Palatka, a distance of 135 miles. 

The boat plunges from the Spring into inter- 
minable thicket, beneath over-arching trees, dense 
in shade and hanging low with Spanish moss. The 
channel is deep enough for an ocean-going schoon- 
er, but so narrow and so abruptly winding that the 
steamer touches the bank on one side while the 
boughs of cypress and gum scrape against the 



52 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

cabin on the other. One seems lost in a wild 
African jungle at one minute, and in another 
emerges into an open country with broad fields 
and green meadows. It is a favorite pastime 
of the traveler to try to see an alligator. If he 
watches carefully ahead he may see once in a 
while one of these curious reptiles slide easily 
from his sunning place amid the dense foliage that 
carpets the low banks on either side of the river. 
At night torches are lighted, the glare giving to 
the scene one of indescribable weirdness, and when 
the darkies on the lower deck chant the low, 
tremulous melodies of their race, the combined 
effect is that of a strange, supernatural and im- 
possible dream. Yet you wake up at Palatka the 
next morning after a short sleep and find the old 
world moving on in its usual hundrum way. 

Gainesville on the Seaboard is a modernized, 
well improved, wide-awake little city, the home of 
a prosperous people, and more important because 
it is the seat of the State University, and enter- 
tains many hundreds of the State's ambitious 
**Eah Rah" boys and girls throughout nine 
months of the year. 

Twenty miles to the Southwest is Williston, 
which might commonly be known as a water-tank 
station, were it not for *^ cukes.'' The cucumber 
has put Williston on the map. Carrying cucum- 
bers to Williston would be the equivalent of carry- 
ing coals to New Castle. 



THE WEST COAST 53 

The world likes cucumbers, especially when they 
are high-priced, and it pays a fancy price for them 
in the early spring. The growers around Willis- 
ton have a congenial soil and a favorable climate 
for raising cucumbers in quantities — hence it is 
that the demand in the Northern market finds sup- 
ply in Levy County, and while the gales of March 
are sweeping over the barren fields of the North, 
the Williston trucker is imitating the busy little 
bee from early morn till dewy eve, and with jealous 
care, coaxing his coming crop. 

In April and May the crating and shipping be- 
gin, and buyers throng the local depot platform. 
Fifty-seven thousand crates of *^ cukes'' have left 
this one station in a single season. Small wonder, 
then, that King **Cuke'' is held in great rever- 
ence. 

This same table delicacy is grown successfully 
in a hundred other Florida sections, but certain 
points become known transcendently for one thing. 
Williston 's fame rests with the cucumber, and Wil- 
liston is content to let it go at that. 

The Western Panhandle of Florida is, in dimen- 
sions, almost an empire by itself, it being nearly 
four hundred miles from Jacksonville to Pensa- 
cola. 

Tallahassee, the quiet, dignified, easy-going old 
capital, is a hospitable and pleasing city to be in, 
and is not only the comfortable abode of those 
connected with the State government and the seat 



54 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

of two colleges, but attracts large numbers of 
visitors who are drawn by the complacent and 
restful air, and by the social and intellectual en- 
vironment of the capital city. 

Two important points lie West of the capital — 
Appalachicola and Pensacola. The former is a 
port of entry, has direct steamer connection with 
Mobile and New Orleans, and ships large quanti- 
ties of oysters and lumber. Its maritime trade is 
of growing importance and is destined to make 
this one of the principal ports on the Gulf Coast. 

Pensacola is a strategically located Gulf Port 
city at the extreme western end of the State, and 
fully nine hundred miles from Key West, the other 
extreme. It was settled by the Spaniards in 1555 
and is admired for its broad and densely shaded 
streets and handsome homes. The fishing indus- 
try is the most extensive on the entire gulf, and 
the lumber industry is enormous, employing thou- 
sands of men. 

The Spanish conquerors who first subdued the 
Indians and established colonies have left their 
impress on the names of streets, and Spanish de- 
rivatives show color in the naming of streams and 
natural phenomena just as the Indian occupancy 
of Florida through past centuries has left its mark 
in the naming of rivers and bays and inlets and 
lakes. Where else in the world are there names 
more indicative of the noble red man than are to 
be found in the *'Caloosahatchie" Eiver, Lake 



THE WEST COAST 55 

''Tohopekaliga,'* Lake **Palatlakaha," the 
**Suanee'' River, Lake **Okechobee," the **Kis- 
simmee^' Eiver, Lake ** Minnehaha, '* the **Okla- 
waha'' Eiver, and down on the Gnlf Coast ten 
miles from Tarpon Springs, close to Anclote Har- 
bor a little river exists with the charming name of 
the **Pithlachacootee.'' Still, this is more pleas- 
ing than one of the points near known on the map 
as Hog Island. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

DIMENSIONS, DISTANCES AND DATA. 

We purchased Florida, and a few other states 
thrown in for good measure, from Spain, in 1821, 
and two good crops of oranges from the laden 
groves would pay all that Spain received in the 
transaction. 

Florida has approximately thirty-seven million 
acres of territory. Sounds very simple, but it is 
hard to appreciate. Its area would equal the com- 
bined areas of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, 
Massachusetts, Ehode Island and Connecticut, six 
of the most thickly settled of the New England 
States. The population of Florida is slightly in 
excess of one million, while the population of the 
six states mentioned is over fifteen million. 

If these states in the North are able to sup- 
port the enormous population that calls them 
home, and that in spite of the fact that much of 
New England's **rock bound coasf is rugged and 
bare, what an army Florida would feed if her 
thirty-seven million acres were developed to the 
superlative degree that we find in the Eastern 
states. 

According to the best estimates made by Federal 
and state engineers about eighteen million acres of 

56 



DIMENSIONS AND DATA 57 

Florida is covered with water, principally in the 
Everglades. 

Florida is a state of magnificent distances. It 
has twelve hundred miles of sea coast. This is 
as much as all the rest of the Atlantic seaboard 
states together. It is also a fact that must be 
reckoned with if the question of national defense 
against a foreign foe should ever reach the acute 
stage. 

Take a few distances, for example. From Fer- 
nandina on the north to Key West on the extreme 
south is 560 miles, or as far as from Columbus, 
Ohio, to Birmingham, Ala. 

The distance east and west, from Fernandina 
to Pensacola is 410 miles, or as far as from Chi- 
cago to Knoxville, Tenn. 

When the newly elected member of the legisla- 
ture at Key West starts to the session of that body 
at the quaint old capital, Tallahassee, he has to 
travel eight hundred miles to get there. Part of 
this distance is occasioned by the elbow around 
which he has to bend, but, aside from Texas and 
California, there are no states in the union where 
one may travel so great a distance in practically 
a straight line, and still keep in the bailiwick of 
the same governor. 

This vast domain, including so many parallels, 
has a varied soil, climate and fruitage. In the 
north an occasional whiff of snow is seen. Around 
Tallahassee and the western wing there is a red 



68 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

clay soil and a rolling country not unlike the blue 
grass section of Kentucky, and the same grains 
and fruits are produced. In the center of the 
state it is semi-tropical, and in the extreme south 
it is purely tropical, so one can run the whole gamut 
of climatic changes and still be in the one state. 

One of the most remarkable engineering achieve- 
ments of the age was the construction of Flagler's 
overseas railroad, the Florida East Coast, from 
Miami to Key West. It jumps from key to key 
for a distance of almost two hundred miles, and 
if Flagler had not run out of ** keys'' he would 
have run passengers into the terminal station at 
Havana. As it is we are but eighty miles from 
Morro Castle by rail and this country practically 
joins hands with the republic to the south and 
is almost bound by iron bands. 

The railroad mileage of Florida increased from 
3,361 miles in 1900 to 6,500 miles in 1915. 

Three hundred million dollars are invested in 
Florida hotels. 

The estimated increase in population for the 
last five years has been 30 per cent, while the bank 
deposits have increased from $44,000,000 to $90,- 
000,000 in the same period. 

Florida is not looked on as a corn state and yet 
the Agricultural Department figures Florida's 
1915 com crop at $10,000,000. 

According to the last census report, and that 
was taken a number of years ago, there are 50,016 



DIMENSIONS AND DATA 59 

farms in Florida, with a capital investment of 
$143,183,000. Implements and animals and farm 
equipment were valued at $25,037,000. 

How would you estimate, in figures, the tourist 
business for a season? Last winter there were, 
conservatively, 200,000 persons from states north, 
who took a trip to Florida. Some stayed a week, 
some stayed four or five months. The average 
would be a month. The average expenditure would 
be $5.00 a day. This would make $30,000,000 at 
the very lowest calculation, rolling into the coffers 
of the state from visitors. It was probably twice 
this amount when railroad fares and purchases 
are included. 

Perhaps you never thought of Florida as a min- 
eral producer. But it is. When Providence spread 
sand all over the peninsula, it also planted beds of 
phosphate from which to make fertilizer that the 
sand might be made to produce. The phosphate 
industry is of no mean importance. There are 
three veins, each usually found in layers of from 
four to seven feet in depth, near the surface — 
they are the Pebble Phosphate, the Hard Eock 
Pebble, and the Eiver Pebble. 

Phosphates are found in ten Florida counties, 
the largest deposits being in Polk County ; $125,- 
000,000 are invested in the industry in land and 
equipment; 10,000 men are employed, and last 
year there were shipped 2,504,794 long tons of 
phosphate. Immense quantities were exported to 



60 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

Germany before the European war, and since 1914 
it has been quiet, but necessity has forced domes- 
tic use on a larger scale and the war may have 
been a disguised blessing to Florida producers and 
users. 

Two hundred eighty-seven million cigars were 
sent out to the smokers of the country from one 
Florida city last year. 

There are 657 varieties of fish in Florida waters. 
The thousands of fresh water lakes in the interior 
abound in bass, perch, jack-salmon, cat fish and 
the myriad other commonly known varieties. The 
gulfs, inlets, bays and bayous literally teem with 
fish, from the game King fish and the elusive 
Tarpon to the non-combatant Mackerel. 

If all the oyster beds of the country were put 
out of business at a single stroke, the waters 
around Appalachicola, Pensacola and a few other 
Florida fishing ports would supply the demands 
of the nation. 

Florida is rightly named **the Land of the 
Lakes. ^' It has uncounted thousands of fresh 
water lakes, from the clear little pond, no larger 
than a city square, to great inland seas, such as 
Lake Apopka in the north — thirty-two miles long — 
and Lake Okechobee in the south, forty-five miles 
in length. Lake County, alone, near the center of 
the state, has twelve hundred of these pure, fresh 
water lakes within its borders. These are not sink 
holes or undrained basins which have been filled 



DIMENSIONS AND DATA 61 

by heavy rains. They are majestic bodies of water, 
many of them, such as Lake Harris, Lake Griffin, 
Lake Dora, Lake Eustis, Lake Louise, Lake Minne- 
haha, Lake Minneola, none of which is less than 
two miles across. These are, in most instances, 
connected by picturesque, winding little rivers, and 
from the standpoint of practical navigation will 
all, probably, one day form parts of a great water 
chain connecting the interior of the state with the 
wide sweeping St. Johns River and then on to the 
ocean. 

The water in these lakes is pure and healthy and 
drinkable. It is slightly tinged with tannic acid 
from the roots of the palmetto but the lakes 
are fed by living springs, have hard feandy 
bottoms and beaches and are favorite resorts for 
bathers. 

The average annual death rate is only nine to 
the thousand. This is the lowest of any state in 
the union. 

Florida has 75,000,000 standing, merchantable 
trees. In spite of the far-reaching raids that have 
been made on the pine forests and the cypress 
groves, the bass, the oak and the hemlock during 
the last forty years, at a time when economy and 
conservation were not in the vocabulary of the 
timberman, Florida still has lumber for the build- 
ing interests of the world for many a year. Added 
to the virgin growth are vast areas of carelessly 
cut-over lands which have an appreciable amount 



62 iWHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

of standing timber that can be utilized to advan- 
tage at tbe mills. 

Florida has not been paying $4.50, $6.00 and 
$7.50 per ton for coal while there was a scarcity 
and prices were soaring. Florida has its supply 
of fuel for many generations in the pine trees 
that are standing around waiting to be used as 
fuel because too small to be cut into lumber, so 
the fuel problem will not in half a century be a 
paramount issue in this state. 

There are 175 varieties of timber found in the 
state, an exhibition of 140 of these having been 
given at one time. 

Florida is essentially a dry state, only five coun- 
ties having saloons and these only a limited num- 
ber each. 

Florida is the chief producer of Fuller's earth 
in the United States, 75 per cent of the national 
production having come from the one state. It is 
used chiefly in clarifying mineral oils. 

Florida used to import its brick almost entirely 
from Georgia and Alabama, but last year the state 
made 41,901,000 common or sand lime bricks for 
local use. 

The world looks to Florida for an appreciable 
part of its supply of turpentine and resin. On 
almost any sunshiny day in mid-winter when all 
nature has a lazy and indolent look and nothing 
seems to be stirring you can count that an aver- 
age of $100,000 is trickling down from the pierced 



DIMENSIONS AND DATA 63 

pine trees into tlie little earthen pots at their base. 
The pine trees are ** turpentined'' for several 
years before they are cut. After a few years 
.they lose some of their vitality through the proc- 
ess, but are still considered merchantable timber. 
The commercial turpentine and the resultant resin 
are procured through thousands of little, home- 
made stills located in every part of the common- 
wealth, and usually attended by negro help. It is 
one case where you may eat your cake and still 
have it, for the tree produces several times its 
cost in turpentine, then produces it again when 
cut up into lumber, and then, in most cases pro- 
duces it again when the cut-over lands are sold 
for agricultural purposes. 

The north central states figure a growing sea- 
son of 110 days. The New England states figure 
on 120 days. The central states figure on 150 
days. Southern California estimates from 238 to 
300 days, while Florida figures on 348 growing 
days out of the 365. It is this longer producing 
period that gives the state its great advantage 
over any other section of the country, and which 
will continue to be of increasing importance as the 
state fills up with growers, and the markets of the 
world feel the need of supplies to feed the oncom- 
ing millions. 

The annual rainfall of Florida is 57 inches. The 
rainy season begins in June and lasts through 
September. During this period it rains every 



64 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

day. Throughout the rest of the year there 
are occasional rains, and they can be counted on 
to such an extent that it has not been consid- 
ered necessary to irrigate. There are irrigation 
systems in use, but not one-tenth of Florida grow- 
ers have found their use essential to successful 
crops. 

Frank A. Munsey, the publisher, puts the case 
of Florida's dependable resources in this way: 
**Men are now fishing gold in Florida, not in 
mines, but in the forests, farms, fisheries and fac- 
tories. Not all the gold that was found in Nevada 
and Arizona last year would equal the wealth that 
went to Florida for her fruits and vegetables, nor 
would the total output of Alaskan mines be enough 
to buy the cigars of Tampa and Key West. There 
are enough golden oranges and grape fruit in her 
groves this winter to pay back the price — five mil- 
lion dollars — ^that the United States paid to Spain 
for the territory, and the lumber that Floridians 
shipped from ^ve sea ports in one year was sold 
for ten million dollars. ' ' 

You speak of Florida and think only of oranges, 
yet, while the orange plays a stellar role in the 
life of the state, it has long years ago ceased to 
be the only crop. Taking oranges from Florida 
would be like taking coal from West Virginia, or 
the steel industry from Pennsylvania, it would 
cripple, but not kill. 

The largest singly-owned orange grove in the 



DIMENSIONS A^B DATA 65 

world is that belonging to King Bros., of Cleve- 
land, O. It is near Wildwood, and contains eleven 
hundred acres. This grove ships, not by the crate 
or the carload, but the train load. At Winter 
Haven, forty miles east of Tampa, are eleven 
thousand acres of continuous grove, probably the 
largest territory devoted entirely to citrus fruits 
in the world. 

When you speak of potatoes your mind imme- 
diately reverts to Michigan, and Michigan surely 
does raise some potatoes, but, at Hastings just be- 
low Palatka there are ten thousand acres devoted 
entirely to Irish potatoes. These are ready for 
the market in March and April and command such 
fancy prices on the market that buyers from all 
over the country locate at Hastings for the sea- 
son. Potatoes are shipped north by the train 
load. 

Oranges cut a lot of ice, but — one little station 
in Hillsboro County shipped 974,000 quarts of 
strawberries to the epicures of the north last year, 
the price varying from 75 cents to 25 cents a quart. 
When strawberries get less than 25 cents a quart 
the Florida gardener quits shipping and turns his 
attention to more profitable things. 

Oranges are in the lead in Florida, but — in the 
region around Sanford if from ten to twenty car- 
loads of celery and lettuce a day is not shipped 
during December and January and February San- 
ford is fretful and peevish and thinks that things 



ee [WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

are dull. Down on tlie Manatee River the produc- 
tion is as great and the returns as satisfying. 

Oranges are the principal item, but — over in 
Pasco County there are acres of covered tobacco 
beds and the tobacco raised in this genial soil and 
under the warm rays of a tropic sun is sold, much 
of it for a dollar a pound, and what is done in one 
spot of fifty acres can be done in fifty different 
sections. 

The alligator has stood as the fright, the bug-a- 
boo, the hob-goblin of Florida, just as the old-time 
mariner was taught to fear the great sea monsters 
that legend had pictured. The alligator has one 
distinct charactertistic that makes him stand out 
boldly, and that is the disposition to attend strictly 
to his own business, and let everybody else se- 
verely alone. You have to run after an alligator 
and run hard to catch him, in order to pick a fuss 
with him. Think of the alligator in commerce. 
Irrational. Yet the much maligned alligator, with- 
out any desire on his part, has become a potent 
factor in the marketable products of Florida. 
Throughout a thousand cities the most exclusive 
jewelry establishments and art stores display 
hand bags and pocket books and various novelties 
made from alligator hides, and these are used by 
fair ladies who do not dream that, in order to 
put these treasures within their reach a small 
army of alligator hunters pursue these wily crea- 
tures through the dismal and distant swamps, and 



DIMENSIONS AND DATA 67 

can only capture them by great stealth and long 
practice. The alligator industry in a single year 
will yield $5,000,000 in revenue. 

The largest sponge industry in America is at 
Tarpon Springs, on the Gulf Coast, where two hun- 
dred and fifty vessels, manned entirely by Greek 
sailors, are engaged in this single industry. These 
daring boatmen and divers go from ten to fifty 
miles out in the gulf, and stay for weeks and 
months, finally appearing in port, down the little 
Anclote harbor, with ships laden with sponges. 
A regular auction market for sponges is conducted 
twice a week, much on the order of the tobacco 
** breaks^' at Lexington and Cincinnati and other 
hurley centers, and to this market come the buy- 
ers from all the metropolitan sponge houses. Tar- 
pon Springs, along the fairyland bayou is one of 
the most picturesque and beautiful spots in the 
world, and strictly American in citizenship, ideals 
and architecture, but ten blocks away, if the trav- 
eler were blindfolded, and set down without a 
knowledge of his whereabouts, he would declare 
he was in the shadow of the Parthenon, for the 
sponge business is conducted entirely by Greeks ; 
the shops, homes, costumes, vessels and language 
are all Greek. 

You look for building stone in a hill country, but 
the deposits of that fine grade of building stone, 
Cochina, along the east coast particularly are al- 
most unlimited. It is of a fine texture, a dull 



68 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

brown color, and is a shell formation, piled away 
there countless centuries ago by the fish, and just 
now being used by man to erect his palace. 

These shell fish were a busy set aeons ago. The 
shell fish, the oyster, the clam, and others of the 
shelly tribe evidently made their home in the bed 
of the ocean that once covered where Florida now 
is, and there are layers six, eight and ten feet 
deep of solid shell, found at numerous points all 
over the state. These shells happen to fit into 
the modern demand for hard roads and they make 
a most excellent and durable automobile high- 
way, so the automobilist of this age is traveling 
in exquisite comfort over the roads built for 
him back in the unrecorded ages of the shadowy 
past. 

The spirit of progressiveness is shown in the 
fact that Florida has more daily newspapers than 
twenty-six other states in the Union. 

Official figures from the State Board of Agricul- 
ture state that the average returns per acre from 
fourteen principal vegetable crops, on good land 
and bad, where carefully attended or loosely 
looked after, is $213.36 per acre, ranging from 
$750 per acre on celery, $395 per acre on lettuce, 
$252 per acre on strawberries, to an average of 
$67 per acre on canteloupes and $43 per acre on 
watermelons. Much greater yields are given in 
thousands of instances, but this is averaging all 
the reports up, shaking them down, and leveling 



DIMENSIONS AND DATA 69 

them off so as to get a fair statement, unmixed 
with enthusiasm. 

The value of Florida live stock, according to 
official figures, was $29,541,000 in 1914, and the 
value of poultry at the same time was $1,137,000. 
The value placed upon dairy products for the 
same period was $4,130,000. The total value of 
all farm products, including field, vegetable, gar- 
den, fruit, live stock, poultry, dairy and apiary 
products was officially given as $83,937,135. 

Forty-nine thousand two hundred seventy-five 
goats were wandering about over Florida's 
stretches of wild land at last reports, and 2,867,500 
chickens were accounted for. A million goats, 
twice as many sheep and innumerable chickens 
ought to be raised. Their ** upkeep** costs little. 



CHAPTER IX. 

WHAT THE SOHj IS GOOD FOR. 

The first rush of settlement towards California 
in '49 was not because the soil of the Western 
Coast attracted the husbandman. The adven- 
turous pioneer of that period caught the gleam 
of gold in the hills and cared nothing about what 
kind of dirt was on the surface. But in the dec- 
ades which have followed, California's real gold 
mines, under the inspiration of Burbank and hardy 
tillers of the soil, have been found on the surface 
rather than under the surface. 

The temporary effects of a rush of gold hunters 
or oil hunters may bring seeming prosperity, but 
when they have folded their tents and gone on to 
newer fields, the after-clap is disastrous. 

The soil is the one criterion of a country's pros- 
perity. 

No less an authority than the Commissioner of 
Agriculture of Florida makes the statement that 
** Nowhere on the American continent can the in- 
dustrious, right-living man find a better country, 
a more congenial climate or a more responsive 
soil; nowhere can he make as good a living and 
create a competence for the future with less labor 

70 



WHAT THE SOIL IS GOOD FOR 71 

and personal effort than in Florida, if lie but ob- 
serves the laws of common sense and ordinary 
business requirements. ' ' 

That statement sounds like common sense Eng- 
lish, coming from a public servant whose business 
it is to know things. It is made in good faith and 
after years of painstaking study of the varied 
soils of the state. 

We are not so much concerned with the forma- 
tions of the Eocene, of the Pliocene age, nor with 
the scholastic and technical distinction between 
Norfolk fine sand and fellowship soil. Let the 
geologists worry about those things. 

What we are concerned with vitally is to answer 
the question so often and so insistently asked as 
to whether the sandy soil of Florida is fertile 
enough to raise anything, and in that discussion 
it is well to give, in a general way the various 
soils prevalent in the state. 

You cannot always tell, in a cursory glance, 
what can be produced in a given spot. As illus- 
trating this, the writer was bowling along on an 
accommodation train through Central Florida a 
winter or so since, and the usual number of passen- 
gers were lounging, or talking, or looking out the 
windows, or sleeping. It was our lot to be hemmed 
up in the smoker with the man who knew it all. 
He had an audience of three who listened patiently 
to his explanation that he had been all over Flor- 
ida in the past week, and he couldn't see anything 



72 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

to it. Glancing out the window, he pointed his fin- 
ger at the unbroken level of sandy loam along 
which we were passing, and asked with an air of 
finality if anybody could imagine ground like that, 
to which he was pointing, producing anything. The 
inevitable answer was **No.'' Just then some- 
thing got wrong with the engine and we stopped 
for some time awaiting repairs. The passengers, 
as is their wont, piled off to walk around and see 
what was wrong. 

It so happened that we were in front of the 
same kind of sand, and some men were working 
not far from the fence. The too-well-informed 
passenger leaned across the fence and asked one 
of the laborers what he was after. On being told 
that they were digging sweet potatoes the in- 
credulous one persisted in a personal inspection, 
followed by a number of other curiosity seekers, 
and found the men with the hoes digging out bushel 
after bushel of large, plump, well developed sweet 
potatoes of unusual proportions. 

It is folly to assume from generalization, or 
from knowledge of one part of the earth's sur- 
face, what can be produced in another. 

The dirt that will cause a pine tree fifteen or 
twenty inches in diameter to shoot up in the air 
a hundred feet, and that will accommodate twenty- 
five of these monsters to the acre, must have suste- 
nance of some kind hid away in its composition. 
If it brings forth rank verdure of one kind it is 



WHAT THE SOIL IS GOOD FOR 73 

only logical to suppose that it will produce some- 
thing useful if given the proper chance. 

It is an adage in Florida that where the pine 
trees grow large, there is a favorable soil for cit- 
rus fruits, and so it has proven. 

Outside the Northern and Northwest sections 
of the state, where red clay is common, the state 
of Florida is a vast expanse of sand. 

Sand may be sand, and largely silicate, or it 
may be a sandy loam, capable of treatment. The 
silicate form occurs along the beaches just as 
along every other beach, and is not dealt with in 
a discussion of soils. 

Careless observers have lumped the whole penin- 
sula in one category, named it a sandy waste, re- 
fused to recognize any mitigating circumstances, 
and have hied themselves back to the place from 
whence they came, spreading the report of their 
investigations and flitting observations wherever 
a listener could be found. 

Silicates are not very productive, and the flora 
along any beach is sparse. But, if a white looking 
sand can be made to produce a grapefruit tree 
and that tree has fifty boxes of large, perfectly 
developed grapefruits on its boughs, then, either 
** there ain't no sich thing,'' or the casual critic 
has made the mistake of judging a whole state by 
a square yard of surface. 

Florida is covered with a mantle of sand. Back 
in prehistoric times old ocean rolled over its en- 



74 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

tire area. The history of this unknown era is 
written in great beds and deposits of shells, many- 
miles in length and from five to ten feet in depth, 
discovered in parts of the state, and now turned 
to commercial account in making shell roads. Af- 
ter the waters had receded, the giants of the past, 
the mastodons, the animals now extinct, wandered 
for unknown aeons and passed off the stage of 
existence. In the phosphate beds are found the 
bones, not only of these, but of elephants, hippo- 
potamuses, and other animals found only now on 
other continents. The geologist and the antiqua- 
rian find Florida interesting. 

It was all, once, the sandy bottom of a great 
ocean. It is still sand, but centuries and aeons of 
time have seen the ever recurring round of spring 
and summer growth yield to fall and winter death, 
until the falling leaves and decaying vegetation 
have formed over millions of acres a fruitful sandy 
loam. Where the waters still cover the sand there 
is unfailingly a rich muck soil that is very pro- 
ductive. 

Undeniably, sand is very common in Florida. 
It is so prevalent and so persistent that soil ex- 
perts have analyzed it and classified it to a gnat's 
heel, and have stood it in long, formidable rows 
and given it big, foreign looking names, but, after 
all, it is only sand, whether the scholars call it 
Norfolk sand, Norfolk fine sand, sandy loam, 
calcareous high hammock, low hammock. Fellow- 



WHAT THE SOIL IS GOOD FOR 75 

ship fine sandy loam, Parkwood, silty clay loam, 
coastal, beach, muck, peat, or whatever other cate- 
gory it may come in, it is still sand, sand, sand. 

For practical, every-day purposes, the soils of 
the state, or rather, the sands, are divided into 
four or five commonly known classes, each adapted 
to certain forms of products. 

* * High Pine * ' land is the lighter sand areas that 
prevail more largely in the central parts of the 
state, and where there are elevations, though not 
limited to such areas. The natural growth of 
such soils is the stalwart, long leaf pine tree. These 
lands are usually free from swamp or are easily 
drained. Such soil has been found, after exten- 
sive experiment, to be best adapted to oranges, 
grapefruit, lemons, limes and the members of the 
citrus family. Many vegetables can be profitably 
raised on high pine land, particularly tomatoes, 
peppers, squashes, sweet potatoes, peas, beans, 
etc., but it is not adapted to Irish potatoes, celery, 
or products requiring a heavier soil. 

** Hammock Land*^ is a general term applied to 
large bodies of land where the soil is as light as 
the high pine, but the natural growth consists of 
a smaller variety of pine tree, and this land is fre- 
quently covered with tall grasses. There are two 
kinds, *^ Light Hammock,'* applied to sandy ham- 
mocks with a light growth of native vegetation, 
and **Low Hammock Land*' with a heavy clay 
texture, and with a native vegetation of live oak, 



76 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

water oak, gum, black oak, and other water-loving 
trees. 

Hammock lands, both light and low, are culti- 
vated in all parts of the state, successfully, and 
in many places are found to yield well in corn 
or sugar cane and vegetables, but are not so well 
adapted to citrus fruits. 

**Muck" is the soil found where water still 
covers the earth or where for ages it has covered 
the surface until drained. The Everglades are 
the great depositories for muck soil. Large areas 
on the East Coast along the seaboard are noted 
for their muck lands. In other sections of the 
state where swamps and low ground are to be 
found, there is a fine quality of muck land, which, 
when drained, is much sought after by growers 
on account of the readiness with which it produces 
vegetables. 

Muck is not only strongly impregnated with de- 
cayed vegetable matter, but it has an appreciable 
mixture of animal matter as well. It is heavy, 
usually dark, solid, and often soured to such an 
extent that lime and other ingredients have to be 
mixed with the soil to sweeten it up for farming 
purposes. It is the residual of water-covered 
ground which throughout unknown ages has had 
rank vegetation and which has profited by the de- 
cayed matter. Wlierever this soil has been scien- 
tifically tried out it has brought forth abundantly. 
It was on account of experiments with muck, and 



WHAT THE SOIL IS GOOD FOR 77 

the knowledge that the Everglades were the great 
depositories of muck soil that the agitation for 
the drainage of the Everglades originally began. 
Underneath all of these soils is usually found, 
at a depth varying from eighteen inches to five 
feet, a good quality of clay. This clay is, in many 
sections, so hard and impenetrable to water that it 
is known commonly as * ' hard pan. ' ' It can easily 
be seen that such an underlying earth is of great 
value to agriculture because it holds the water 
and keeps it from sinking right through to greater 
depths. Florida has its rainy season from June 
to September. During these months there is rare- 
ly a day but brings a heavy rain. Often they are 
long continued and the precipitation is phenome- 
nal. In the winter, however, at the time when 
most of the staters best crops are maturing and 
ready for market, there is little rain. If it were 
not for the underlying clay which persists almost 
over the whole state, holding the water near the 
surface and refreshing the roots of trees and 
growing things when the top is very dry, it would 
require extensive irrigation systems to raise any- 
thing worth while in the state. As it is, there are 
many small irrigation plants used, but compara- 
tively few when the number of growers in the 
state is taken into account. Whole sections will 
show but one or two farmers who have invested in 
an irrigation system. There are few winter grow- 
ing seasons when the moisture retained by the 



78 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

clay subsoil is not sufficient, together with the occa- 
sional rains, to mature good crops. Irrigation sys- 
tems are rather a ** safety first'' proposition in 
Florida, a sure shot preventive of drought rather 
than a generally recognized necessity. 

Between these few main divisions of soil there 
are many gradations and varieties, characteristic 
of different localities and dependent on the lay of 
the land, the depressions, the elevations, the water 
courses and other conditions. 

There are coarse sands and fine sands and loamy 
sands and sands heavily permeated with clay, or 
vegetable, or animal matter, but sand is the pre- 
vailing soil, whatever its geological or scholastic 
classification, it is still sand. 

If sand is sterile and will not produce, then 
Florida is a desert, and the reported crops are a 
mjrth. If, on the other hand, there are actually 
heavy laden groves and bumper yields of almost 
every known vegetable, then sand must be fer- 
tile. 

One characteristic of Florida soil, which per- 
tains in a degree everywhere, is the quick diver- 
sity in a very small compass. Within a few hun- 
dred feet an emphatic and radical difference in 
soil shows. One will yield to culture readily. The 
other will not. To the casual observer, both may 
look nearly alike. 

It has always been so in oil and gas territory, 
A gusher may be found in one spot and fifty feet 



,WHAT THE SOIL IS GOOD FOR 79 

away a duster will come in. In Florida the changes 
are sudden, and a barren spot, usually of small 
dimensions, will occur right alongside a fertile 
piece of ground. 

It used to be supposed that the wide stretches 
of flat country with few trees, and covered with a 
dense coating of palmetto bushes, was a barren 
waste and incapable of profitable cultivation, but 
the wonderful truck gardens of the Manatee coun- 
try are known in all the markets of the United 
States. 

The same cultivation and treatment that has 
made this wilderness to blossom as the rose, to 
bring forth fruit in abundance, has been extended 
on down the gulf and miles below Sarasota the 
wilderness is being conquered and harnessed to 
the uses of men, and great plantations are laid 
out. 

Yet, the region naturally is smothered with a 
rank and tenacious growth of palmetto. 

If some Nature wonder worker would invent a 
profitable use for the palmetto, millionaires would 
be made in Florida over night. 

The most delicate and innocent looking palmetto 
that rises not over twenty-four inches above the 
ground, has a root as large and as difficult to grub 
out as the giant oak or beech, and when there are 
vast mazes of palmettos growing closely together, 
their roots intertwined and bent in such a con- 
glomerate mass that nothing this side a dynamite 



80 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

bomb seems adequate to meet the situation, they 
are a problem in hard work. As a matter of fact, 
tbe giant powder and dynamite methods are being 
used with good results. Large explosive com- 
panies have planted branches in Florida and are 
showing the farmer how easy it is to get rid of the 
pestiferous palmetto, an acre at a time. 

The palmetto is as ungracious as a bad habit 
about letting go, but once loose, it is loose for good. 



CHAPTER X. 

THAT FEETILIZER QUESTION". 

And now we are squarely up, face to face, with 
the question as to whether or not anything will 
grow in Florida without fertilizer. 

Broadly speaking, no. 

What are the farmers — the ambitious ones — ^in 
all the states north of the Mason and Dixon line, 
and, for that matter, south of it, doing from No- 
vember until March? 

The lazy ones are sitting around the fire resting 
their dry bones and talking about the weakness of 
our political leaders and the mistakes of Moses. 
The industrious ones, who use their brains as an 
asset in their business, are strengthening the soil 
on their places. They are hiking around the coun- 
try getting manure and other forms of fertilizer 
and scattering it over the land — renewing it. Some 
of them who have damp, soggy, sour land, are 
throwing lime over it to sweeten it up. 

If they do not use fertilizer will they have a 
crop? Yes, but half the farms in the Central 
States today are run down and nonproductive be- 
cause lazy and shiftless farmers who depend on 
Providence and not on muscle, fail to build them 

81 



82 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

up with fertilizers. These farms produce, but only 
in a half-way degree, and get worse every year 
they are cultivated. Is fertilizer necessary in Illi- 
nois and Minnesota and Virginia? Yes, if one is 
going to make farming pay. If he doesn't care it 
is not. Something will grow. Dog fennel and rag 
weed will grow without fertilizing, but corn and 
potatoes will not. 

The situation is the same in Florida with these 
two variations. Very little will grow without some 
fertilizer, except in the richer muck lands. But a 
reasonable degree of fertilization brings such 
results in production that nobody this side an 
arrant fool would withhold the little attention nec- 
essary to produce the right sort of a crop. 

Fertilizers are practically essential to produc- 
tion in most of the state. But the same hand that 
made the sand, placed large beds of phosphate 
right over against the sand, and commercial fertil- 
izer is largely made from phosphates. The phos- 
phate has to be chemically prepared, but it is the 
basis of fertilizers as used in the extreme South. 

The Lord furnished a warm, even, well-tem- 
pered climate, just right for growing stuff ; he fur- 
nished a soil that could be easily induced to raise 
big things ; he provided enough rain to keep things 
fresh; he set the phosphate beds conveniently 
around, and said to man, '*Go to work, here are 
all the conditions for an abundance. Now, work 
or starve.'' 



THAT FERTILIZER QUESTION 83 

Barnyard fertilizer is as valuable in Florida as 
any place else and costs as little. Commercial fer- 
tilizer costs from $20.00 to $40.00 the ton, depend- 
ing on markets and conditions, and adds, in gen- 
eral, about ten per cent to the cost of growing vege- 
tables and fruits. It adds from seventy to ninety 
per cent to the productiveness of all sorts of vege- 
tation. Who would decline to make the investment 
at such a rate of interest! 

The cost of fertilizer is a negligible quantity as 
compared with the results that come from its use. 
The grower who uses it, puts his money and his 
labor out at compound interest, and then has ad- 
vantage of the ordinary usurer by raising two or 
three crops on the same piece of ground in the 
same year. 

If the trucker decides to devote a piece of land 
to tomatoes, he plants and fertilizes properly the 
latter part of December or early in January. In 
March he is shipping to the northern markets. 
When tomatoes are done for he decides to raise 
watermelons, and in May he is shipping water- 
melons to the markets. When the season is over 
he puts in cow peas, or some of the hay crop like 
Natal hay, and in the fall he has a good yield of 
hay or some forage crop. He uses this, or some- 
times turns it under to enrich the ground; but 
three crops on the same pieces of ground in one 
year is common. What wonder, then, that fertil- 
izing is necessary? It would be advisable on the 



84 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

richest soil on the globe. In Florida it is essen- 
tial to growth. 

One great trouble with the transplanted farmer 
from some sections of the North is that he has to 
wholly reconstruct his ideas of agriculture before 
he can make a success of it. If he has been accus- 
tomed to scattering his efforts over a hundred and 
sixty acres in Tennessee or Missouri or South 
Dakota, and especially if he is one of those com- 
monly known as *^hill billys'* who has been con- 
tent with raising a little corn and a hog or two, and 
resting during most of the year, he had better 
rearrange his ideas of cultivation, or steer clear 
of Florida. Intensive cultivation of a small tract 
is the rule in the state, and intensive cultivation 
means hard work and knowing how to make things 
grow. Hundreds, yes, thousands of instances can 
be given of ten-acre tracts properly cared for 
which produce as much as the average one hun- 
dred and fifty-acre farm in cooler latitudes, but 
the results are obtained by intelligent work, and 
not by trusting to Providence or tenants. 

Fertilization, in a modest way, spells success in 
Florida, if intelligence and labor accompany the 
fertilizer. Ten or twenty acres is a lot of land if 
the grower is going to get acquainted with each 
individual weed, but when he does it he is on the 
high road to competence. Laziness and shiftless- 
ness are at a discount the world over, but there 
are some countries where they do not show glar- 



THAT FERTILIZER QUESTION 85 

ingly. In Florida they stand out like a wart on 
your nose. 

The exploitation of certain crops in certain 
localities might lead one to suppose at first thought 
that these sections have a soil of such texture as 
to give a practical monopoly on these products. 
Such is not the case. It means, rather, that spe- 
cial attention has been paid to certain marketable 
articles in a given locality, and that growers in 
the area have joined efforts on a few leaders. This 
is sometimes beneficial on account of economical 
handling, crating and shipping and sometimes the 
soil in a locality is unusually genial to one vege- 
table or another, but there may be a multitude of 
places in which the same results might be obtained 
if the same efforts were made. 

By way of illustration — Orange, Lake and Polk 
Counties in the highland lake region are looked on 
as advantageous locations for citrus groves, and 
these do flourish ; yet, on the high pine lands near 
Clermont, right in the heart of this citrus belt, we 
have seen tomatoes that yielded $800.00 an acre; 
squashes that produced $600.00 an acre ; rutabagas 
of enormous size, abnormally large sweet potatoes, 
carrots, radishes, peppers, egg plant, and a dozen 
other vegetable wonders. Yet this region is largely 
and properly the home of citrus fruits. 

Because a high grade of tobacco is grown in 
Gadsden County and not much attention is paid 
to it elsewhere in the commonwealth, does not 



86 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

imply more than that it has not been attempted in 
other localities. 

Because Sanford is known as a celery and let- 
tuce center does not mean that soils in other parts 
of the state are not equally well adapted to its 
growth, for it is produced in scores of places. A 
hundred cars of celery a season are shipped from 
fields on the edge of the City of Tampa. 

Irish potatoes are a big item in the agriculture 
of a part of the East Coast, but geography has 
nothing to do with this fact. Similar heavy, muck 
soil all over the state will yield the same results. 

The heavier crops of corn are raised in the 
Northern Panhandle, but corn is produced in every 
county in Florida. 

Polk and Bradford Counties have the ascend- 
ency in strawberry production, but Bradford 
County has as genial a soil, and they can be pro- 
duced in every part of the state. 

Given perfect climate and moderately good soil 
and production is only limited by the wisdom and 
energy of the people who do the cultivating. 

The Canadian farmer in the little growing space 
open to him between May and September devotes 
his energies to wheat, because wheat is possible 
and wheat pays. When the ides of September 
approaches, the Canuck begins to batten his house 
and patch up the crevices around his barn, for he 
will be banked up with snow for six months. The 
Florida farmer has four growing seasons instead 



THAT FERTILIZER QUESTION 87 

of one. He has a hundred opportunities instead 
of applying himself to one crop like wheat. 

There is something planted and something har- 
vested every month in the year in the Sunshine 
State. 

This was not so a decade or so since. Chance 
brought about the diversified farming of the state. 
Up to 1895 Florida was supposed to bring forth 
oranges and nothing much beside. Only a few 
years before the freeze a grape fruit tree was 
looked on as an interloper and was promptly cut 
down and the wood used for fence posts. The 
freeze compelled trial crops of all kinds. It opened 
the eyes of the native people to the wonderful pos- 
sibilities before them. It remade Florida. Noth- 
ing now is impossible. 

All you have to do to start some fellow in a 
profitable line of production is to intimate to him 
that he cannot raise it in Florida, and somebody 
begins raising it at a profit. 

Providence has furnished sand, rain and sun- 
shine. If man will help out with a little energy 
and some fertilizer and use his good judgment as 
to what to plant and when to sell it, Florida is 
good enough. 



CHAPTER XI. 

WHAT CAN BE RAISED PROFITABLY? 

We do not want to be accused of endeavoring to 
* * take in too much territory, ' ' as the Irishman did 
in the saloon, but it may be broadly stated that 
any vegetable, fruit or grain that can be produced 
any place else in the world, can be raised in 
Florida. 

The climate is so varied, the soil so diverse, and 
conditions of growing so favorable that, to some 
degree or other, anything that is growable will 
grow in Florida. 

Of course they will not all make profitable 
producers. 

One feature must, however, have credit, and 
that is that the growing season lasts practically 
throughout the year. A reasonable rotation of 
crops will produce two, three, and sometimes four 
harvests on the same ground. 

The most skeptical must admit that these condi- 
tions favor profitable agriculture and that if there 
are not paramount obstacles which cannot be over- 
come, Florida ought soon to be the most profitable 
farming area under the sun. Its sponsors do not 
hesitate to make this sweeping prediction. 

Profits on products depend primarily on soil, 

88 



WHAT TO RAISE PROFITABLY 89 

and climate and markets, but secondarily on the 
cost of production, which involves the valuation 
placed on the land itself. 

It does not require a mathematician to arrive 
at the conclusion that, if a profit can be realized 
on ground that costs one thousand dollars an acre, 
a better margin will be shown on ground that costs 
$150.00 an acre, and Florida has very little soil 
that is selling at either price. 

Granting that there are 19,000,000 acres of till- 
able ground in the state, it will be many years 
before this is crowded, even with the spirited influx 
of home-seekers shown in recent years. Not more 
than 2,000,000 acres are under consistent cultiva- 
tion at this time. Large cattle ranches are used 
for grazing purposes, and since the stock is de- 
pendent on native grasses for sustenance, these 
ranches might reasonably be added to the farming 
territory, but they are not tilled. 

When you compare Florida 's present population 
of a little over a million, with the dwellers around 
Wall Street who number nearly five million, it is 
easily seen that there is no crowding. One of the 
long cherished dreams of our philosophers and 
statesmen has been that the dense congestion in 
our over-populated cities might be relieved by a 
movement to spread out and get back to the soil. 
We have too many consumers and not enough 
producers. This hope is possible of fulfillment if 
a message can be gotten through to these cooped- 



90 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA ? 

up millions that there are broad fields in the further 
South beckoning to them. 

Land in California, adapted to citrus fruit cul- 
ture, varies in price from five hundred dollars to 
two thousand dollars an acre. California has about 
the same wet and dry problems that face Florida, 
and has a soil not unlike that of the latter state in 
that it is sandy and light. California's growers 
regard the price of raw land in their state as rea- 
sonable, and agriculture on the Western Coast 
shows a healthy profit, although the producer is 
two thousand miles further from the leading mar- 
kets than his competitor in Florida. 

A fair statement of average acreage prices in 
Florida would be fifty dollars an acre. Where it 
is remote from transportation, uncleared, covered 
with jungle and distant from population centers, it 
can frequently be had for tw^enty-five dollars an 
acre, and less, but lake fronts and well located 
citrus and vegetable lands sell as high as $150.00 
and $200.00 an acre. Wild lands, particularly 
what is known as cut-over lands, in large bodies, 
without improvement or settlement may be had 
at a lower price, but are not advisable purchases 
for-the small buyer because the necessary work of 
development cannot be done by a single small 
owner. These are community matters and must 
be done by a combination of interests. The 
cheaper tracts involve important improvement 
work and community upbuilding to make them 



WHAT TO RAISE PROFITABLY 91 

practical. The large development companies, the 
colonies, the organizations, the land companies, 
have frequently been caustically criticized for the 
price they placed upon their lands ; but the critic 
has failed to consider that the organization has 
sometimes spent a modest fortune in general de- 
velopment in paving the way for practical farming 
before they offered an acre of land for sale. 

If California land sells at an average of say, 
$1,250.00 an acre, and a similar soil in Florida sells 
for an average of fifty to sixty dollars an acre — 
granting as good a climate and a reasonably fair 
soil in comparison, manifestly the argument is 
altogether in favor of the Southern state. 

The cost of clearing where the palmetto is in 
its greatest glory may run as high as thirty to 
forty dollars an acre, but in sections where the pal- 
metto is sparse, and where scrub oaks or pines are 
prevalent, it can be done for fifteen dollars to 
twenty dollars an acre. 

To get fairly at the question as to what a man 
can profitably raise in Florida requires attention 
to a number of items. Distorted views sometimes 
creep into the folders and booklets of promotion 
companies and colonization leaders, and, while 
these are infinitely more reliable than they former- 
ly were, the writers, in their enthusiasm, are apt 
to take isolated instances of heavy production and 
draw a moral from these alone. 

For instance: A man in a husky little com- 



92 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

munity not far from Tampa Bay, reported that he 
had a watermelon weighing fifty pounds on his 
table for Thanksgiving. Investigation proved that 
he did have such a melon and at this unseasonable 
time, but inquiry also developed the fact that he 
had grown but one melon, and it would be unwise 
and therefore misleading to state that **this sec- 
tion is noted for the abnormal size of its water- 
melons.'' If he could raise one melon, he could 
raise more, of course, but general conclusions 
should not be drawn from solitary cases. 

An entire book could be filled with authentic 
instances of big profits made in given localities, 
on any of the prominent products of the state, but 
the faithful chronologer must hit the low places as 
well as the high places, or, at the very least, con- 
fine himself to a happy medium that comes within 
the easy realm of ordinary accomplishment. 

Here is an actual case : A Kentuckian had a fine 
orange grove in the center of the state not far 
from Ocala. He entrusted it to careless tenants. 
From lack of attention, it run down. He tired of 
its ownership, reported the grove business as un- 
profitable, and sold his possession at a loss. A 
wide-awake, practical grower bought it, restored it 
to its former perfect condition, watched it care- 
fully, and in three years showed from his books 
that the grove had paid for itself and had $9,000.00 
cash to its credit. If we had reports from the two 
owners on the same grove, to which would we give 



WHAT TO RAISE PROFITABLY 93 

credence? It was a failure, and it was a success. 
It was simply a difference in the handling. 

If the average successful manufacturer should 
shut down his desk, leave his plant, and go off to 
the seaside and trust to ^4uck^^ for dividends, he 
would go ** broke '* and ought to. 

Eternal vigilance is the price of many other 
things besides liberty. 

Whatever else is produced in Florida, the state 
will probably stand or fall on its citrus fruit repu- 
tation, since the soil and the climate combine to 
make the citrus family thrive here as nowhere else. 

Speaking of citrus fruits reminds us of a good 
old county judge, from one of the states up North, 
a well-informed man in many ways, but botani- 
cally deficient. 

He said, **I have been around this section quite 
a little in the last day or so. I have seen the oranges 
and the grapefruit, and the tangerines and 
lemons, and now I would like you to take me out to 
some grove and show me one of them there citrus 
fruits that you have been talkin' about.'* In as 
delicate a way as possible, so as not to give offense, 
we reminded him that he had already seen the cit- 
rus fruit. 

Florida shipped about nine million boxes of 
oranges and grapefruit for the season of 1914-15. 
War conditions had so broken up the markets of 
the country that normal prices did not obtain. 
Under average circumstances, from year to year, 



94 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

the grower may expect an average of at least $1.50 
a box for oranges, and $2.00 per box for grape 
fruit. Florida oranges are universally considered 
sweeter, juicier, and of a more delightful flavor, 
than any competing orange. On the Boston market 
of last year, car loads of Florida oranges averaged 
from $3.60 per box to $4.27 per box. 

Prices in the retail market, naturally, are very 
much higher at times, it being no uncommon thing 
for grape fruit in April and May to go from $4.50 
to $8.00 a crate. 

In the Winter Haven district, where the citrus 
industry has reached a high state of development, 
as much as fifty thousand dollars has been offered 
for twenty acres of mature growth, and the offer 
refused. The grove in question has averaged 
almost 25% on fifty thousand dollars for many 
years. Nearby is another grove containing less 
than eight acres, which has yielded a net 
profit of over four thousand dollars annually to its 
owner for the past five years, in 1913 the earnings 
on this small grove being $7,000.00 net. 

Oranges have been looked on as a staple ; grape 
fruit as a luxury. Grape fruit is fast passing the 
point of luxury where you see it only on dining 
cars, and in high-class restaurants, and Florida is 
the only state where grape fruit is generally and 
successfully raised. 

In conversation with a man nationally known, 
and of wide business experience a year or so since, 



WHAT TO RAISE PROFITABLY 95 

we questioned his wisdom in setting out such ex- 
tensive grape fruit groves, and asked him if he 
did not fear over-production. His reply was to the 
point, and contained keen judgment and foresight. 
He said, *^We are building for the future. There 
are ninety million people North of us ; seventy-five 
million of them never yet tasted a grape fruit. 
When the grape fruit becomes known to the many 
as it is now known to the few, you might plant all 
of Florida in grape fruit and by no means satiate 
the public appetite for it.*' While the orange is 
seen in the hands of even the poorest child just as 
candy is seen, grape fruit is not yet known to the 
great mass of the people, yet grape fruit has no 
equal as a mildly acid tonic, or as an appetizer. A 
campaign of popularizing this fruit would pay bet- 
ter than any investment the state could make, and 
would be followed by such demand that the groves 
would not be able to furnish the fruit. 

One of the attractive qualities of grape fruit, 
from the standpoint of marketing is its stick-to-it- 
iveness. It just seems to hate to let go. The 
orchardist of the North who grows apples has to 
pick them at a certain time or they relieve him of 
the necessity by falling off. Even before this, the 
busy little worm gets in his work and unless proper 
spraying is done, half the crop falls untimely. The 
citrus fruit grower may have ripe grape fruit in 
November. He may decide that the market is not 
favorable, and if so he can leave his crop on the 



96 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

trees until December or January, or February, or 
March. He can even wait until April, and only a 
small percentage falls off. Then there are late 
varieties coming into extensive cultivation which 
ripen in February and hang around on the trees 
until June, or even later. Experimentation and 
scientific treatment have gone far enough to 
almost establish grape fruit as an all-the-year 
product. 

The high pine, or hammock ground best adapted 
for citrus purposes, costs, on the average, $60.00 
an acre. It would take in most instances, $20.00 an 
acre to clear it. An average of 49 trees per acre 
are set out. These cost from fifty cents to one dol- 
lar per tree, averaging, say, seventy-five cents. The 
fertilizer necessary to their start costs, perhaps, 
ten dollars an acre. The labor and care at the first, 
twenty dollars an acre. It is four years before the 
young trees begin to show any returns, and in the 
fourth year the yield is small. In the fifth year the 
grape fruit ought to yield a box per tree. In the 
sixth year from two to three boxes. If this grape 
fruit is marketed to advantage at something like 
$2.00 a box, an acre will yield $98.00 the fifth year; 
$298.00 the sixth year, and from that on the pro- 
duction increases gradually. 

Reports of all kinds come from different sec- 
tions where citrus fruit is grown. It is no uncom- 
mon thing for the growers in every part of the 
state to report a net profit of $2,000.00 and 



WHAT TO RAISE PROFITABLY 97 

$2,500.00 on a five-acre grove, eight or ten years 
old, and from that up to $4,000.00 after deducting 
customary incidentals and labor. The question is 
frequently asked, and it is a pertinent one, if the 
Northern citizen who desires to spend his winters 
in Florida can afford to own a moderate sized 
grove, coming to the state for perhaps three win- 
ter months and leaving the grove for the rest of 
the year. It is about as safe a proposition for a 
man to go off and leave alone as any investment 
that a man can make and not continually watch. 
If the fruit is marketed in the presence of the 
owner, and the trees given proper care and fertil- 
ization, very slight attention need be paid to them 
during the balance of the year, although a limited 
amount of looking after at intervals throughout 
the spring and summer will pay, and this service 
can be had in every community for a small sum. 

There is no set rule as to the number of trees to 
plant to an acre, some planters putting in seventy, 
but the majority setting out not more than seven 
rows of seven trees each to the acre. There is no 
fixed rule as to fertilizer. One expert authority 
figures $6.00 per acre for the first year, $12.00 for 
the second year, $18.00 for the third year, running 
as high as $40.00 for the eighth year, but imme- 
diately qualifies this statement by saying that half 
of this amount ought to do. 

Bearing groves are sold on the market at from 
$1,000.00 to $3,000.00 an acre. The price asked 



98 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

for any given grove depends almost solely on how 
well that grove has been cared for. 

Slight cold spells do not affect citrus groves 
adversely. A cool spell, and even a slight frost is 
looked on as being an advantage to the ripening 
fruit, but, cold spells and reported blizzards are 
not thoroughly enjoyed by the man with a big crop 
on his trees. Some groves in the central and 
northern parts of the state have been for years, 
provided with stoves and other forms of heating 
apparatus to provide against a sudden drop in the 
temperature, but these are not often used, for as a 
matter of fact, outside of a few sections like Cres- 
cent City, there are not many groves in the north- 
ern part of the state. 

As a matter of downright pleasure and satisfac- 
tion, the care of an orange grove is one of the most 
pleasing diversions that a man can have. It is one 
of the most reliable forms of investment, if it has 
consistent and scientific attention. 

If the cultivation of an orange grove brings 
health and recreation, and satisfaction, it has paid 
for itself; but if it also brings dividends, and a 
healthful bank account it has paid better. 

Tangerines are among the most attractive of 
the fancy oranges grown. They are known as the 
kid glove orange, and always have a ready sale. 

Kumquats are junior members of the orange 
family. They are cultivated more as ornamental 
trees than for their commercial value a-nd are only 



WHAT TO RAISE PROFITABLY 99 

rarely seen in the markets of the North. They 
deserve and would repay much wider attention. 
Except in the extreme southern part of the state, 
lemons and limes are cultivated in but a limited 
way. There is no inherent reason why large acre- 
ages should not be devoted to these very popular 
fruits, for they are in great demand at soda foun- 
tains and in the homes all over the nation. Their 
culture will bring satisfying returns. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE STOKY OF THE ORANGE. 

The orange first saw the light of day in the im- 
penetrable forests of tropical India, in the Valley 
of the Ganges, under the shadow of the Himalaya 
Mountains. 

That was a long time ago measured by the days 
of the years of our lives, and yet not long as 
reckoned by the age of the grape, the olive, the fig 
and the pomegranate, all of which are spoken of 
in Bible history, while the orange is not; from 
which we conclude that the rise of the orange was 
within the time of the Christian era and that it is 
not over two thousand years old. 

In process of time the natives of India brought 
the orange out from those dense, sunless stretches 
of pathless jungle, out into the open where sun- 
shine and care developed it. The tree grew in size 
and the branches spread, the buds thickened and 
the roots went deep into the nourishing earth. 
Gradually, the fruit took on the rich golden color 
absorbed from the sun. 

But this was the work of centuries. It took close 
study and experimentation by many people of 
many nations to bring it to its present state of 
perfection. In the 400 period it reached Europe. 

100 



STORY OF THE ORANGE 101 

Later we catch a glimpse of it in Central China. 
Then it spread to Java. In time it reached Spain, 
and in the sixteenth century the Spaniards brought 
it to the West Indies and to Florida. The first 
orange trees were probably brought to St. Augus- 
tine in the year 1565 by Pedro Menendez de Avilles, 
who arrived from Spain with a complete colony of 
artisans, farmers, priests and soldiers. 

The Spanish race, however, has never been an 
agriculture loving people, but rather were their 
ambitions toward world dominance ; to the subju- 
gation of nations, and to loot ; to which end they 
bent their plow-shares and pruning hooks into 
swords. So, when we got Florida from the Span- 
iards, a hundred years ago, they had done little to 
develop this important industry in that state, 
which, more than any part of the world from the 
standpoint of soil, climate and .rainfall seems made 
for orange growing. 

In all these multiplied centuries it was necessary 
to discover that good oranges could not be repro- 
duced from the planting of their own seed. It took 
years upon years to learn that the seed of the sour 
orange, the lemon or the grape fruit must be 
planted and permitted to take root for two or three 
years, then the bud stock of a perfect producing 
orange tree had to be grafted onto these roots, 
and, at the end of two more years of nursery 
growth, under scientific treatment, the perfected 
tree, then from ^yq to seven feet in height, was 



102 :WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

ready for transplanting to the grove. This, in 
time, became the ** pedigreed'' tree, just as the live 
stock grower has his pedigreed stock of the highest 
producing strains. 

And, as the years have come and gone, we have 
come to realize that the food elements of the 
orange are greater than those possessed by other 
kinds of human food. It seems as if nature, after 
practicing on all other foods, at last attained per- 
fection and distilled inside the cover of the orange 
completed results. The orange is nutritious, exhil- 
arating, appetizing and refreshing. It is a tonic, 
a blood purifier and a bone builder. In it are 
blended mineral alkalies, organic acids, sugar, 
phosphoric acid and iron. All these are essential 
to the highest development of good health and 
enable the user to live beyond the three score and 
ten limit. 

Henry Abbey, a business man, philosopher and 
poet, has given to the world a pleasing little poem 
on the use of the tree, reproduced herewith : 

What do we plant when we plant the tree ? 
We plant the ship, which will cross the sea, 
We plant the mast to carry the sails, 
We plant the planks to withstand the gales, 
The keel, the keelson and beam and knee, 
We plant the ship when we plant the tree. 

What do we plant when we plant the tree? 
We plant the houses for you and me, 
We plant the rafters, the shingles, the floors. 
We plant the studding, the lath, the doors, 



STORY OF THE ORANGE 103 

The beams and siding, all parts that be, 
We plant the house when we plant the tree. 

What do we plant when we plant the tree ? 
A thousand things that we daily see, 
We plant the spire that outtowers the crag : 
We plant the staff for our country 's flag, 
We plant the shade from the hot sun free, 
We plant all these when we plant the tree. 

And to this another poet, philosopher, business 
man has added a few lines which fit in very nicely 
with those of Henry Abbey : 

What do we plan from the orange tree ? 
We plan a fortune for you and me : 
We plant the fruit that heightens our gains, 
The food that cures us of aches and pains, 
That settles our debts and makes us free, 
All this we plan when we plant this tree. 

What do we plan from the orange tree ? 
A round of comforts for you and me, 
A home, an auto, nice trips and clothes, 
And all the pleasure that money bestows, 
Together with voyages over the sea, 
All this we plan when we plant this tree. 

What do we plan from the orange tree ? 

We plan for old age to be care free, 

Our four score years o 'er crowded with bliss. 

Our trees to bloom and seldom to miss, 

And never a trouble for us to see, 

All this we plan when we plant this tree. 

Yes, Mr. Abbey forgot the greatest tree of them 
all, for ships made of trees are submarined and 
sunk, or they strike icebergs and go to the bottom. 



104 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

Houses built of lumber from trees bum, but the 
orange tree goes on unceasingly. No fruit tree 
compares with it as to hardiness and length of 
life. If an apple trees passes the half century mark 
it is so notable an event as to occasion comment, 
but in Rome there is an orange tree that has 
reached the remarkable age of 716 years. It is 
split and riven by time, but its branches still tower 
skyward. In France there is an orange tree with 
the record of 463 years, and it stands sturdy and 
staunch, with promise of reaching a *^ripe old 



In Spain are orange groves 400 years old, one 
tree of which has been growing for 632 years, with 
no serious signs of decay. 

No less a personage than Solomon said, ** Agood 
man leaveth an inheritance to his children's chil- 
dren. ' ' If the orange tree had been known in Solo- 
mon 's time how earnestly he might have recom- 
mended it, because, in planting an orange grove 
we are doing the most permanent work of a com- 
mercial character that is possible for us to accom- 
plish. We not only plant for ourselves but for our 
children and for their children. 

The bountiful yield of the orange tree is not 
fully understood or appreciated. In the Azores is 
a tree that produced 20,000 oranges in one season. 
In Europe 5,000 were picked from a tree. In Lake 
County, Florida — to come nearer home — a grower 
gathered 6,000 oranges from one of the six hun- 



STORY OF THE ORANGE 105 

dred trees that comprise his grove, and he realized 
$97.00 from the one tree in one season. The ban- 
ner yield in Florida from one tree was 10,000 
oranges. There are few like it. It is a tree sixty- 
feet high and four feet in diameter. 

When the orange is golden ripe in November 
and mingles with the green of the leaf on the trees, 
it is the most pleasing sight. Not only is it a dream 
for the artistic eye, but the commercial aspect is 
equally appealing. The golden fruit is suggestive 
of golden returns. Oranges hang on the trees, if 
desired, all winter long, the owner shipping when 
the market suits him best. 

There is another yearly sightseeing occasion in 
an orange grove that is memorable. It is at blos- 
soming time in February, when the air is suffused 
with the most delightful odors and the snow white 
bloom is wonderful in its wax-like perf ectness. No 
perfume in the world is so sweet. The richness of 
the odor attracts the honey bees, and they help in 
the process of fertilization. 

In countries where labor is cheap, as in India, 
for instance, where wages yield the pitiful sum of 
fifteen cents per day, they gather the surplus blos- 
soms as they fall from the trees, spreading them 
fresh every day over wax that absorbs the odor, 
later treating the wax to an alcohol preparation 
that in turn draws the odor from the wax, and this 
simple process gives to milady the high priced and 
exquisite perfumery she loves. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE GEO WEES GOT WISE. 

In days gone by the orange pickers knocked the 
fruit from the trees with poles, bruising it and 
causing its premature decay. They improved upon 
that plan by pulling it from the limb by hand. 
Now, with a ladder, a sack and clippers, the fruit 
is cut from the limb and decay averted. Oranges 
are sorted by pouring them into a hopper, from 
which they run down a trough and over a revolv- 
ing belt that has holes in it to fit the different 
sizes, which drop into their respective canvas lined 
compartments, and are then boxed for shipment. 
There are 80 large sized oranges in a box. They 
vary in size up to 250, the average being 176 to a 
box. 

There has been constant growth in the intelli- 
gent development of citrus fruit growing in Flor- 
ida. The hand never touches the fruit, and the 
sanitary conditions could not be more perfect in 
the handling of human food. At the packing house 
it is sorted, washed, dried, polished, wrapped in 
papers, the bare hand never touching it from tree 
to table. 

After the growers of Florida had their eye 
teeth cut, much as the tobacco growers of the Cen- 

106 



THE GROWERS GOT WISE 107 

tral States did, and after they found that the buy- 
ers were parcelling out districts to each other and 
that there was, in reality, no competitive buying, 
they got together and organized the Florida Citrus 
Exchange. This is the most effective factor in the 
state in the profitable handling of fruit. 

This organization keeps the fruit flowing from 
the state to the Northern market with a steady 
hand, knowing exactly what each market in each 
of the consuming centers can utilize, and never 
overstocking a distributing center so as to pull 
down the price. 

Just before the Citrus Exchange was organized 
growers were receiving as low as thirty cents a 
box for oranges, because the buyers had formed a 
pool and stipulated the price they would pay. Two 
months after this organization started in, commis- 
sion houses raised their prices to $2.00 a box. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

PEACHES PAY, ALSO STRAWBERKIES, WATERMELONS AND 
CANTELOUPES. 

The Georgia peach (not Ty Cobb), has been so 
popular and so profitable that the world has over- 
looked the fact that Florida is congenial in soil 
and climate for raising peaches, and has engaged 
quite liberally in proving her claims as the coming 
home of the early peach. Peach culture has had 
new impetus in the past few years and has been 
instituted in all parts of the state, but more par- 
ticularly in the northern counties. 

While the average life of the peach tree is not 
long, it is a fast liver while it is at it. The peach 
tree's life is not more than seven years, on the 
average, but it begins to produce early, a strag- 
gling crop showing in two years. In the third year 
the crop is appreciable and marketable. In the 
next four years it is abnormally large. After that 
the peach tree goes into a decline. 

The advantage of peach culture is that it gives 
variety to effort. The stock costs but little. They 
are set out thickly — 108 to the acre — and very fre- 
quently are planted between the rows of citrus 
fruits while the young grove is maturing, and in 
this way are a big asset at little cost. Fifteen to 

108 



PEACHES, ETC., PAY 109 

twenty dollars an acre will give them thorough 
cultivation, half that amount will supply fertilizer, 
and, if the seven years ' life of the tree nets $40.00 
per tree, as has been frequently done, this means 
$4,320 per acre or $43,200 for a ten-acre peach 
orchard for the seven years of its active life. 
The figures would look incongruous if prac- 
tical peach raising had not proven that it can be 
done. 

High pine, high hammock, or well drained low 
hammock ground is adapted to peach culture if the 
land is free from swamp. Florida peaches being 
naturally earlier than the Georgia crop, bring a 
fancier figure on the market, running from $2.00 
to $6.00 per crate. 

Apples are not attempted in Florida, except in 
the northerly sections, and then not on an exten- 
sive scale, because they are produced so largely in 
other states, and the modern storage house keeps 
them throughout the entire year. Pears, plums, 
figs, apricots, cherries, and all the common fruits 
of the central state are found in Florida. 

STRAWBERRIES. 

The epicure of the effete east used to look ofi this 
table delicacy during the winter months as a viand 
for the gods, because only a very few were raised, 
out of season, and these in hot beds, and at great 
cost. 

Now, every grocery and fruit stand displays 



110 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

strawberries in the snow storms of January almost 
as freely as in the sunshine of June. 

The answer is — the Florida grower, and the ice 
packed carton. 

Strawberries require lots of moisture. They 
thrive best in low, sandy soil, with plenty of vege- 
table matter mixed in its composition. Florida has 
taken front rank as a strawberry producer for the 
unseasonable and the early markets. Twenty coun- 
ties raise them profitably. As before stated, one 
little shipping point in Hillsboro County has 
shipped as many as 974,000 quarts in a single 
season. Under favorable culture and reasonable 
market conditions they bring from $750 to $2,000 
per acre. They are packed eighty quarts to the 
box, in iced refrigerator crates and shipped alto- 
gether by express, usually on through fast express 
trains that make passenger train time. The cost 
is heavy, but the price ranges from 85 cents a quart 
to as low as 25 cents. When they run much below 
the latter figures shipping ceases and the trucker 
turns his attention to the next crop. The Florida 
strawberry is large and of a beautiful color and 
fine fragrance, but they are hardly so sweet as the 
northern berry. The man who devotes himself to 
strawberries and who has the proper sort of soil, 
usually counts on three months of unduly active 
work during the year and a good bank roll, so 
he can feel free to do what he pleases the rest of 
the time. 



PEACHES, ETC., PAY 111 

WATERMELONS AND CANTELOUPES. 

Before tlie day of Soutlieni shipping for early 
use the watermelon harvest of the central states 
occurred about the middle of July. Today the 
country has become almost satiated with melons 
by the nation's birth day. The first melons on 
the Northern market come from Florida. A little 
later Georgia begins to market her crop, then Ten- 
nessee falls into line and finally the states north 
of the Ohio River. 

Perhaps the one item that will make the water- 
melon crop a perennial question as time goes on 
will be the fact that it can be produced in any 
part of the state. The temptation will naturally be 
for everybody to plunge thoughtlessly into raising 
watermelons, and the natural result will be a glut- 
ted market. If the truckers in other lines follow 
the example of the citrus growers and organize for 
selling purposes this catastrophe may be avoided. 
At any rate, such a condition is a long time in the 
future. It will probably bring its cure as agricul- 
ture gets on a more business-like basis. 

At present the watermelon trucker can sit down 
with a pencil and paper and almost figure out in 
advance what he will get for his season's work. 
Granted a sandy loam, constant sunshine, cultiva- 
tion, and the vines do the rest, provided the grower 
has looked ahead and arranged for fortunate 
marketing. 



112 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

Solid train loads of melons, watermelons and 
canteloupes are shipped from Florida farms every 
day of the melon season. The buyers know where 
the melons are to be found. They are ready with 
check books. In one section of Lake County, 
within ten miles there were sixty watermelon 
buyers active in one season, and this little terri- 
tory shipped five hundred and sixty-nine solid cars 
of melons. An average of $150 a car is considered 
a fair price for melons, and this means a profit of 
this much or more per acre. When the vines are 
done producing and the last car has left the sta- 
tion the grower turns his ground under for another 
crop to be harvested in the fall. 

Seventy thousand four hundred and seventy- 
four car loads of watermelons, and 254,523 crates 
of canteloupes have been reported out of Florida 
in a season, and the official figures are notably 
incomplete. 



CHAPTER XV. 

OTHER **BEST SELLERS." 

The figures given herewith are gleaned from 
official sources. It is not mandatory that every 
grower or that every county report to headquar- 
ters, but the state officials, through county agents, 
have tried faithfully to get an adequate idea of 
what has been produced, as a basis on which to 
found the state agricultural reports. These reports 
are necessarily inadequate, but they form one of 
the most reliable sources from which one may 
judge of the varied field and garden products of 
the commonwealth. No figures are given on a 
number of important items, such as okra, cauli- 
flower, asparagus, rutabagas, carrots, radishes, 
collards, turnips, brussels sprouts, parsnips, spin- 
ach, pumpkins, squash, butter beans, mustard, 
oats, rye, wheat, and many similar crops of impor- 
tance, but a few figures on some of the better 
known producers and the locality that gives them 
most attention, are appended, as a sort of guide to 
the agricultural possibilities of the state. 

Cotton. Twenty-four counties grew, in a recent 
year, 54,140 bales of ordinary cotton, valued at 
$3,000,000. The same cotton today, with an advanc- 

113 



114 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

ing market, would bring $6,000,000. The high grade 
Sea Island cotton was raised in nineteen counties, 
with a reported production of 22,321 bales, valued 
at a little over twenty cents a pound. The same 
cotton later jumped to fifty cents a pound and the 
crop at this rate would have sold for $4,000,000. 

Peanuts. Thirty-eight counties reported 156,000 
acres devoted to peanuts, with a crop of 1,854,235 
bushels, valued at $1.00 to $1.50 per bushel. Pea- 
nuts easily average $200 per acre to the grower. 

Ha^. Scant attention, comparatively, has been 
given to hay and forage crops, yet 62,815 acres 
were reported in hay in a year. Much hay and feed 
had to be imported into Florida. 

Sugar Cane. It is undoubtedly one of the com- 
ing money makers of the state. The Jesuit Fathers 
imported the seed cane from the West Indies in 
1518. It had been brought over by Columbus on 
his second voyage in 1493. The methods for grow- 
ing the crop and for extracting the juice are almost 
as primitive as they were when the Jesuits first 
introduced the cane into this country. One acre 
of a good crop of sugar cane, yielding about 400 
gallons of sirup, will put more money into the 
farmer's pocket than fifteen acres of ten-cent cot- 
ton, and will require less work. Forty-eight coun- 
ties ** raised cane,*' and sold 94,800 barrels of cane 
sirup. Jackson County was in the lead, with 2,500 
acres in cane. It can be profitably raised in every 
county in Florida. 



OTHER ** BEST SELLERS " 115 

Sweet Potatoes, The Florida sweet potato, or 
yam, is the healthiest, best developed, most appe- 
tizing and satisfying article that ever went on the 
table. It is very generally cultivated. Reports 
show that fifty counties raised 2,776,000 bushels, 
worth from $1.00 to $2.00 per bushel. Sweet pota- 
toes easily earn $150.00 per acre profits, and from 
that up. 

Irish Potatoes, While Irish potatoes find their 
greatest popularity in St. John's County, center- 
ing around Hastings, yet they are produced in 
thirty counties. St. John's County had twelve 
thousand acres in sweet potatoes. The state, as a 
whole, had 1,937,000 bushels valued at $2,500,000 at 
the time. There have been periods since when 
this many Irish potatoes would have been worth a 
king's ransom. Irish potatoes will earn from 
$300.00 to $500.00 an acre. 

Tobacco. Two counties, Gadsden and Pasco, 
have specialized somewhat in tobacco. Two 
methods were adopted, the open field and the cov- 
ered, the tobacco raised in the shade bringing a 
much fancier price. Five hundred and thirty-nine 
acres of shaded tobacco in Gadsden County pro- 
duced 1,600,000 pounds, and sold for nearly $800,- 
000.00. Eighty-eight acres of covered tobacco in 
Pasco County sold for the snug sum of $50,800.00. 

Celery. Sanford and Manatee hold center of 
stage in the popular mind when celery is men- 
tioned, because they have given great attention to 



116 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

this table delicacy, yet it is raised profitably in 
fifteen counties. Some of the waste ground just 
outside the city of Tampa is being devoted to cel- 
ery, while the owners are waiting for the sale of 
lots, and fifty thousand crates are shipped from 
the suburbs in a year ; 801,000 crates at an average 
price of $1.50 per crate is the report of the state 
for a year. 

Lettuce. This commands a ready market all 
through the year, but naturally brings fancier 
prices in mid-winter; 711,500 crates have been 
shipped, the prices running from $1.00 to $2.00 
per crate. 

Velvet Beans. There were 489,000 bushels of 
these produced in 43 counties and sold for 
$805,000.00. 

Peppers. Sixteen hundred acres of peppers 
were reported in the state with a production of 
465,716 crates ; they sold at an average of $1.50 per 
crate. Many growers make from $750.00 to $1,- 
000.00 an acre on peppers. 

Tomatoes. Florida is getting almost as cele- 
brated for its tomatoes as for its oranges, and 
soon the language of the publicist will change from 
the ^* golden gleam of the orange*' to the *^ blood- 
red blush of the tomato," for while Florida 
shipped 9,000,000 crates of oranges and grape 
fruit, she shipped 3,619,000 crates of tomatoes, 
valued at $5,500,000.00. While they were raised in 
24 counties, two counties were prize winners. Dade 



OTHER ** BEST SELLERS '' 117 

County had 9,500 acres of tomatoes and St. Lucie 
County devoted 5,000 acres to tomatoes. It is no 
uncommon thing for the grower to realize $1,000.00 
an acre on tomatoes. 

Cabbage, They are raised profitably all over 
the state, but two counties, Alachua and Sumter, 
devoted the most space to cabbage ; 545,330 crates 
were shipped at an average of $1.00 per crate. 

Cucumbers, They are popular in most of the 
state, but are produced heavily in Levy, Sumter, 
De Soto, Marion and Alachua Counties; 584,700 
crates valued at half a million dollars have been 
shipped in a season. 

Beans, Marion County, with 1,200 acres, led in 
the bean production; the state shipped 832,960 
crates valued at $1,500,000.00. 

Egg Plant, Sixteen counties produced and 
reported on egg plant, shipping 585,000 crates at 
prices from $1.00 to $2.00. 

Grapes. The largest yield was in St. John's 
County, though they are raised profitably in forty- 
five counties. No consistent culture of grapes has 
been followed, and yet 1,385,000 pounds were 
produced. 

Pineapples, Only four counties, De Soto, Dade, 
Palm Beach and St. John's grew these extensively; 
400,000 crates, valued at half a million dollars, 
have been shipped. 

Pears, The common variety of pears yielded 
28,425 barrels. The Advocada yielded 24,280 



118 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

crates, which sold for an average of $3.00 per 
crate. 

Other Items. Two counties, Dade and Palm 
Beach, shipped 65,000 bunches of bananas. Three 
counties shipped 29,000 crates of mangoes. Two 
counties, Dade and Palm Beach, shipped 4,000,000 
cocoanuts. Bradford County, alone, shipped 2,217,- 
000 quarts of strawberries in a season; 61,980 
crates of guavas at a dollar per crate, were 
shipped in a year ; 24,500 crates of figs, averaging 
$2.00 per crate, went to the markets, and while 
the pecan business is really in its infancy in Flor- 
ida, it is going to grow amazingly, for 20,000 
bushels have been produced in forty counties, and 
extensive pecan culture is promised. 

When the merchant or manufacturer figures, he 
sets aside a certain amount for the maintenance 
of himself and dependents. The figures given 
above on all items have not taken into account the 
amounts used at home, so they do not represent the 
total production ; they do carry out, illustrate, am- 
plify and bear out the contention that Florida is 
capable of producing a great many profitable 
crops ; that these crops can be produced in almost 
any part of the state, that they can be marketed at 
the time of the year when nine-tenths of the states 
of the Union are held in the grip of winter, and 
hence, can be sold at fancy prices. 

They dispel the idea of the ignorant and unin- 
formed that Florida is a great jungle, a pathless 



OTHER '' BEST SELLERS " 119 

wilderness, a hopeless swamp, a vitreous sand pile, 
a rendezvous only for snakes and alligators, and 
they dispel the commonly held theory prevalent 
for many years that oranges were the one possible 
crop that could be profitably raised. 

Intensive cultivation of the soil in any one of 50 
counties, together with sensible rotation, reason- 
able fertilization, and an eye on the market, will 
bring handsomer returns than stocks, bonds, 
banks, investments, securities, or any of the com- 
monly accepted forms of investing money. 

Another Little Item, And not so small after all ; 
so big, in fact, that it is hard to grasp. Even in the 
imperfect list of products mentioned above as 
being shipped in the course of a year, the item of 
crates and cartons and barrels for shipping pur- 
poses is one that makes a great industry in itself. 
It is fortunate that Florida has such an abundance 
of wood, for its products are largely shipped in 
crates and these crates have to be made. The trees 
have to be found, the lumber cut, and men em- 
ployed to put the crates together. It would take 
24,581,000 crates, cartons and barrels to hold the 
shipments mentioned above. It requires an army 
of men to make these shipping conveniences. If 
you ever have a desire to see a human machine 
work with electric-like rapidity, go some day to an 
orange packing house and see the men literally 
throw together the orange crates; they do piece 
work entirely, and no other form of manual labor 
is ever performed with such lightning rapidity. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

STOCK KAISING. 

Heke, again, opinions conflict. A couple of years 
ago the agricultural department reported the fol- 
lowing on hand: Horses, 55,000; mules, 37,000; 
oxen, 8,200 ; native stock cattle, 855,900 ; thorough- 
bred cattle, 20,208; milch cows, 41,680; hogs, 662,- 
370; sheep, 120,200; goats, 49,270; chickens, 
3,844,776. 

Florida cattle are pretty generally judged by 
the scrawny little specimens that one sees along 
the railroads, browsing on tufts of grass, chewing 
at the bark of trees, and in other ways, trying to 
eke out a living. If there is one card in the deck 
that Florida has overlooked shamelessly, it has 
been the matter of its stock. The result has been 
that great train loads of Armour ^s and other 
meats have been shipped in from the West, and 
these have helped in destroying a domestic indus- 
try of much promise. 

For a long time, it was generally thought that 
the climate of Florida was not adapted to the 
growth of fine cattle. The real truth of the matter 
is, that fine cattle have never had a chance. The 
fallacy as to climate has been refuted times with- 
out number. Florida stock has suffered severely 

120 



STOCK RAISING 121 

from the prevalence of the ** cattle tick," the same 
little pestilence that nearly put Texas cattle out 
of business a few years ago ; but Florida citizens 
and practical stock raisers have taken hold of the 
tick proposition in such a thoroughly skillful man- 
ner that the ** cattle tick'* is not thriving as it 
formerly did. 

There is no reason under the sun why Florida 
should not rank with Texas in the raising of fine 
stock. The trouble has been with the stock raisers 
and not with the stock. On account of the even 
temperature, and the great boundaries of unused 
land, 90% of Florida cattle have had to shift for 
themselves. They were simply turned out, were 
not fed, nor watered, nor salted. The breeds were 
not improved. No encouragement whatever was 
given to the ambitious young steer to become large 
and juicy, for, throughout the whole year he had 
to browse around on whatever happened to be 
loose in the way of food, without any encourage- 
ment from the barnyard. 

Another impediment was the lack of hay and 
other rough feed for stock. Until the last five or 
six years a silo was unknown in the entire state. 
Attempts were made to raise hay, but only in a 
spasmodic way, and without consistent study of 
the soil and the crop desired. A few years ago 
some experiments were made in Natal hay, this 
crop having been very successful in Natal, South 
Africa, on a similar soil to that of Florida, and 



122 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

now Natal hay is fast becoming one of the staple 
crops of the state. It can be raised in any county 
and is peculiarly fitted to the sandy soil. In this 
regard, it is unlike alfalfa. Alfalfa does not thrive 
in this texture of soil ; Natal hay is adapted to it. 
A few years ago, great quantities of hay were reg- 
ularly shipped from states further north right 
into the agricultural state of Florida. This was 
naturally costly, and it put a ban on the develop- 
ment of stock raising. The prediction is freely 
made that Natal hay will relieve this situation in a 
short time; that it will become generally known 
throughout the state; and it is such a succulent 
and nutritious grass and is grown so readily that 
there is reason to believe that Florida will be ex- 
porting to other states large quantities of this new 
grass. It sells for from $20.00 to $25.00 per ton, 
and cuts from two to four crops a year. After the 
first sowing it grows spontaneously for a number 
of seasons. If it proves as successful as its 
adherents claim, the stock situation in Florida 
ought to be revolutionized within the ^next ten 
years. 

The foregoing is not intended to convey the idea 
that no attention has been paid to stock raising, 
for there are large ranches in various parts of the 
state, some of them having as high as 25,000 head 
of cattle, and an appreciable lot of Florida stock 
has been shipped to the northern markets. It is 
claimed that the native meat is even more pleasing 



STOCK RAISING 123 

than that shipped in from the West, but, to an 
observer who goes along the railroad lines and 
sees the thin-visaged, long-horned cattle browsing 
on the thin grass, the prospect for cattle is not 
promising. The three things : Lack of consistent 
care of the stock already in the state, the lack of 
satisfactory hay produced locally in large quanti- 
ties, and the failure to bring into the state for 
breeding purposes a better class of stock has ac- 
counted for the situation as it now exists. That it 
will be improved rapidly, and that the Florida of 
tomorrow is to be one of the leading cattle raising 
states in the nation within a decade is easily seen. 
The authorities of the state are bending every ef- 
fort to improve the situation, and they are bring- 
ing to their assistance all the latest developments 
of science, are establishing experiment farms and 
stations, are bettering the breeds, and are flooding 
the state with literature on the subject. 

When it comes to hogs, one always thinks of 
the razor back, and naturally adverts to Bill Nye 's 
idea of the razor back as being ** built for speed*' 
entirely. They are speedy, they are certainly 
thin, and they do not have the appearance of being 
fit to eat; but this is also on account of the fact 
that in ninety cases out of a hundred the young 
porker has a hole punched in his ear, for identifi- 
cation purposes, and is turned loose in the wilds 
to work out his own salvation. He has no help or 
assistance from his owners. We are persuaded 



124 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

that the same class of stock would be resultant, if 
the same methods were pursued in Kentucky or 
Kansas. There is no inherent reason why the 
breed of hogs should not be impr(>ved. The weather 
conditions and climate are favorable and there is 
ample room and plenty of water. If Florida 
farmers and stock raisers take hold of the stock 
proposition and pursue it as has been done in 
other states, it will be one of the greatest sources 
of revenue that can be found. 

Another idea that has been prevalent, and which 
has been disproved is that chickens would not 
thrive in Florida. The writer is not a poultry au- 
thority, but, in his travels through various states 
he has never seen a more healthy, thrifty lot of 
chickens than the fifteen hundred or more which 
he saw in one poultry yard at Clermont a year or 
so since. They were White Leghorns of the high- 
est type. The owner was a practical man, and 
there was such a demand for the eggs that he had 
them sold to regular customers months ahead at a 
high price, and these were shipped to the big hotels 
on the East Coast. This one instance, if there were 
not thousands of others, would disprove the popu- 
lar fallacy that chickens were not adapted to cli- 
matic and other conditions in Florida. As a mat- 
ter of fact, on account of the lightness of the soil, 
there are fewer of the ordinary diseases and perils 
that thin out the chicken tribe in Florida than any 
place else in the country, and the same amount of 



STOCK RAISING 125 

care devoted to chickens that is given them in the 
older states would pay large dividends. 

We doubt whether horses will ever be much of a 
factor in Florida. They are getting to be a negli- 
gible factor, except for plowing and some of the 
rougher kinds of farm work. The automobile has 
put the horse out of business. Of course there are 
horses. Some few years ago the benevolent pur- 
pose of the Federal government was to supply a 
large number of our fellow citizens with ** forty 
acres and a mule. ' ' Many of them have their mule 
yet. The horse and the mule have not, and we 
believe never will have a sufficient amount of atten- 
tion in this state to make it compete with Ken- 
tucky. The automobile, the truck, and the tractor 
will fill the bill for the future. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE EVERGLADES. 

You cannot side-step them, nor skip them, nor 
overlook them, nor forget them, nor **soft pedaP* 
around the subject, for wherever Florida is dis- 
cussed, there are those Everglades bobbing up 
staring you right square in the face, demanding 
settlement. 

What about them? 

In the first place, let us admit that they have 
been discovered, that they are there and will have 
to be dealt with. 

The Everglades lay below the 27th parallel, have 
a width of about 45 miles, are about 100 miles long, 
and, together with an accompanying area that also 
needs drainage, cover about 4,300,000 acres. The 
surface of the Glades is 21 feet above sea level in 
some places, and slopes gently toward the south. 
Contrary to the usual conception, engineers who 
have been all over the territory say that the Glades 
are in no way a swamp ; they present the appear- 
ance of a broad, level, grass-covered prairie; 
there are practically no trees. Clumps of small 
bushes are found near the eastern and southern 
edges. They are covered almost uniformly with a 
growth of saw grass. In the campaign of 1905 the 

126 



THE EVERGLADES 127 

successful candidate for governor of Florida was 
elected on a platform pledged to the drainage of 
the Everglades. That was over ten years ago 
and the Everglades are still with us. In the mean- 
time, a great amount of reclamation work has been 
done. Over 300 miles of canals are now open. The 
canals now contracted for or under construction, 
emptying into the sea from the Everglades, if 
placed side by side, would be equivalent to a river 
500 feet wide and ten feet deep. 

Similar projects have been carried on in many 
countries, including the lowlands of Louisiana, the 
inundated territories of Holland, and the Fens of 
eastern England; but, in the last generation, no 
greater engineering feat has been undertaken, out- 
side the digging of the Panama Canal. 

Unfortunately, the Everglades got into politics. 
Campaigns have been lost in a most unscientific 
way, the fight hinging on the practicability of their 
drainage. The fight has been carried into the 
higher courts of science. Engineers and experts of 
the Federal government have been called in and 
their opinion sought. Then an appeal has been 
taken to the Supreme Court of scientific opinion 
in centers of learning throughout the world, and 
majority and minority opinions have been handed 
down. In the meantime, they kept on digging 
canals and draining the Everglades. 

One side claimed that the Everglades could 
not be drained, and if drained, they would be 



128 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

worth nothing ; the other side put on its witnesses 
and proved that the Everglades are some twenty 
feet higher than the surrounding ocean and gulf 
and cited the axiom that water will run down hill. 
The preponderance of testimony on the part of 
scientists and engineers is that they can be suc- 
cessfully drained. 

There is no question but that the first thought of 
their reclamation proceeded in large measure from 
corporations, companies and individuals who 
had staked out claims at a very small price, 
and who with the desire to make money, pro- 
jected the idea that the draining of the Everglades 
would leave a fabulously rich territory for culti- 
vation. 

But the State of Florida went into the proposi- 
tion on a business basis. While the question has 
been the football of legislatures and the bone of 
contention of scientists and engineers, the work 
has gone steadily on. The only people who have 
remained serene throughout this period have been 
the Seminole Indians. The last of this imperious 
race has been shoved by civilization from place to 
place and finally have made their last stand on the 
edge of the Glades. There they maintain their 
original traditions, their habits, their customs, 
their speech, and they have found an easy liveli- 
hood in fishing and hunting, and in the simpler 
pursuits of agriculture. If the Everglades prove 
the rich prize that is claimed, we presume the next 



THE EVERGLADES 129 

move will be to shove the Seminoles over on the 
Dry Tortugas. 

Eiforts so far made have seemed to prove that 
the muck that covers this great area is rich and 
responsive. Vegetables of enormous size have 
been raised. In a measure, the judgment of the 
scientists favoring drainage has been correct. It 
cannot be fully declared that all of the territory 
so drained will be practicable for agriculture, but 
the presumption is in favor of this argument. It 
has not absolutely been proven that the drainage 
of the whole territory is possible because the levels 
are not well enough known, but the preponderance 
of evidence is in favor of a fairly complete drain- 
age, and also that a rich muck adapted to vege- 
tables over much of this area will be secured. 

Now, as to the practical features of this great 
development as it relates to the grower, the aver- 
age farmer and the investor. Because the Semin- 
oles live on the edge of the Everglades is not to be 
taken as the best evidence that other people can 
thrive there. Even with drainage, the territory is 
low, the saw grass is high, the mosquitoes physic- 
ally gigantic in size, the air laden with noxious 
vapors at times, the atmosphere heavy and inert, 
and there is everything enervating calculated to 
depress and not have that exhilarating influence 
that one feels in a higher altitude, or in a Northern 
climate. Health and living conditions are of para- 
mount importance. It is impossible to conceive 



130 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

that this will ever be satisfactory in this part of 
Florida. 

Those who have so vehemently argued that the 
Everglades cannot be drained are perhaps wrong. 
Those who have maintained that this will make 
one of the garden spots of the universe, inhabited 
by a thrifty and satisfied people, are equally in 
error. The Everglades is no place for the inde- 
pendent man, the man with limited means, the man 
with a family to raise, with children to school and 
dependent on his own exertions for a living. This 
country will have to have millions more people 
before there could be serious reason for the ordi- 
nary man detaching himself from society, pioneer- 
ing in a newly made empire, abandoning the habits 
and pursuits of regular civilized life and attempt- 
ing to make a home place w^here living conditions 
must necessarily be a question for a long time, and 
where health and comfort are questionable. 

It is fortunate that the government stepped in 
and put a quietus on what was popularly known as 
the sale of Florida lands * ^ by the quart. ' ' Figures 
of ttimes tell a fascinating story, and human nature 
is forever prone to want to send its money away 
off somewhere, to chase down the channels of 
chance, to pursue the purely speculative rather 
than to buy the known and knowable. Many peo- 
ple were lured by the amazing statistics of what 
could be grown, and, that a remarkable vegetation 
can be produced stands today without challenge, 



THE EVERGLADES 131 

but it is one thing to know that a territory will 
respond to culture by bumper crops and quite 
another to make that country home. 

"We hold that the old world has traveled along 
far enough now to rid itself of the necessity of 
great pioneering, such as was necessary when 
countries were new and when the pathways 
through the wilderness had to be trod by hardy 
feet. At that time it was all right for the hero to 
go it alone, to leave his wife and children to wait 
through the weary months and sometimes through 
the years for his return. 

But we do not need so much of that sort of hardy 
citizenship now. We like the idea of seeing the 
school house and the church and the social center 
follow the man with the title bond to the new 
claim ; to see the little cottage, the wife, the mother, 
the children, the county fair, the friendly games, 
all these indicative of a community that is making 
its home some place, and not merely a bunch of 
men who are camping out on a claim temporarily. 
If the Everglades are drained and thrown open 
to cultivation, they will be cultivated. There are 
men who will volunteer for any pioneer work, 
whether to penetrate the ice fields beyond Nome or 
the rice fields of the farther South, but it will not 
interest the average, every-day, hard-working, 
home-loving man who expects to go to Florida to 
make his home. Time will come when every acre 
of this old country will be utilized to maintain the 



132 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA 1 

millions wlio have flocked to the Stars and Stripes, 
but let those fellows twenty-five, fifty or a hundred 
years from now fight the battles, that you and I do 
not need to bother our heads about. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

''ten acres and independence/' 

This has been the rallying cry, the clarion call 
of the publicist, the promoter, the colonist in 
Texas, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida 
and other southern states for a generation. 

It sounds good. 

It has been heard in the far-away Rockies, in 
the pine forests of the Great Lakes, in the Vir- 
ginias, along the Mississippi, down the St. Law- 
rence and across in the provinces of His Majesty, 
George. From the field, the office, the mill, the 
mine, they have lent their ears to the far-off sound 
of independence, and have rallied to the call. 

And while it has truthfully been charged that 
men and groups of men have in times past, 
through misrepresentation and fraud and subtle 
influences, conspired to cause unsuspecting pur- 
chasers to buy what they had for sale, and while 
these same influences have had a damaging effect 
on a territory that was marked by them as their 
prey, yet, let us not generalize too widely and as- 
sume that all of the promotion of Florida has been 
with sinister purpose, nor even that a majority of 
colonization schemes were founded on fraud. This 

133 



134 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

is not the case. Indeed, a very small percentage 
of the publicity work done to acquaint people with 
the advantages of this southern empire has been 
intentionally deceptive and dishonest. The most of 
it was hopest, fair, plain, sincere, and based on 
actual conditions that could not well be over-pic- 
tured. 

Honest men, and strong organizations have 
exploited desirable parts of Florida, and have 
brought to the state much of its best citizenship 
and its wealth. They have used this rallying cry 
**Ten Acres and Independence'^ honestly and fair- 
ly and have stood ready to prove that it was not a 
poet's dream. 

It sounds good. Like all fallacies, it is based on 
truth, and has lured the hard-earned savings from 
the pockets of many a man of meagre means. It 
has lined the silken pockets of many a skin-flint. 

The misleading truth is that ten acres, consist- 
ently cultivated in Florida, has in numberless in- 
stances, brought independence, and sometimes af- 
fluence, to the owner. It might almost be said that 
ten acres, consistently cultivated and sensibly mar- 
keted in practically any part of Florida, will bring 
a competence or at any rate, a good living. Hence 
it is that the slogan is all the harder to refute, 
because it is based on tenable grounds. There is 
not the slightest difficulty in establishing by innu- 
merable, competent witnesses, that ten acres, or 
even five acres, with the right cultivation, has 



'* TEN ACRES AND INDEPENDENCE '' 135 

brought forth abundantly and made its owners 
independent citizens. 

The case is just as simple as can be stated. Take 
an ordinary ten-acre grape fruit grove that has 
been set out six or eight years and has had good 
care. There is no reason at all why such a grove 
should not bring the owner, with an average mar- 
ket, at least $400.00 per acre, which would mean 
$4,000.00 a year. Many groves bring more. Many 
groves bring less. This is not an unusual average. 
And it is easy enough to maintain that to the aver- 
age man who has not been in a high-salaried posi- 
tion, nor in a great money-making business, that 
$4,000.00 a year is a very snug sum, and puts a 
man safely on *^easy street.^' It might not seem 
like affluence to Carnegie or Eockefeller, but it 
would look mighty good to most men. 

Why not, therefore, join lustily in the cry and 
let it be known from Dan even to Beersheba that 
in the glorious State of Florida, where the birds 
sing, and the flowers bloom all the year round, that 
life flows on in endless song, that joy is uncon- 
fined, and that any man can go down, buy ten acres 
and be independent. 

Why not reach the languishing millions in our 
congested centers of population, waiting for an 
opportunity like this? Are there not millions of 
hungry children, herded in the tenements of our 
great cities, whose health would be built up, whose 
lives would remain joyous, who would see a gleam 



136 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

of hope in the East, if their parents were to take 
them from the grewsome surroundings under 
which they exist, and place them in God's sunlight, 
on ten acres in Florida? Are there not weary- 
workers in forges, in mills, and shops, and stuffy 
offices, whose health demands that they get out 
into the open, and who could leave these health- 
wrecking, nerve-racking surroundings, and become 
new men on ten acres in Florida? Are there not 
thousands of discontented women, widows, spin- 
sters, teachers, seamsters, stenographers who 
could easily look after the cultivation of a tract as 
small as that named, and from it bring forth inde- 
pendence. 

Let us grant again that it is from among these 
very people, many of them, that come the best illus- 
trations that ten acres and independence can be 
found in Florida, but is the old case of *Hhe excep- 
tion proving the rule.'' If the mill worker in the 
Pittsburgh district who leaves his machine or his 
forge, takes with him his little family and settles 
on ten acres in Florida, were a farmer, naturally 
had the soil instinct, and would acquaint himself 
with local conditions, and fortify himself against 
failure, with steady courage, energy and good 
headwork, then there is no question but that ten 
acres in almost any part of the state would bring 
him returns better than he ever received in his life 
before. As a matter of fact, if he cultivated his 
ten acres intensively, didn't depend too much on 



** TEN ACRES AND INDEPENDENCE '' 137 

hired hands, spent a very small portion of his time 
at the village store discussing affairs of the nation, 
rotated his crops and watched the market, ten 
acres is about all that he could take care of. 

The farmer in the central states, with some help 
tills fifty or a hundred and fifty acres, but the gar- 
dener in Florida has all that he can attend to if 
he looks after twenty acres or ten acres, and there 
are times when five acres will keep a man busy. 

By way of illustration : On a train coming out 
of a little city in Osceola County a year or so since, 
a young man sat down by the writer, and while 
well dressed, his hands were badly stained. He 
excused himself, saying that he had been work- 
ing very hard and could not get the stain off* We 
asked further about his work and he said that 
he had just marketed his lettuce — most of it. Nat- 
urally one inquiry followed another, and he said 
that he had five acres in lettuce. We sought to 
find out about what the ^ve acres would produce 
and found him modest — that is, he had not much 
of the braggadocio that goes with success. He 
said that he had marketed, so far, five thousand 
dollars' worth of lettuce, and that he thought he 
had a couple of thousand dollars' worth more 
which he would market in the next two or three 
weeks. This was a bona fide case, for inquiry 
in town developed that not only this man, but 
many others, had been equally successful with 
their own crops. 



138 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA ? 

It is cases like this which enable the promoter 
to herald the cry of independence, because, under 
conditions like this, ten acres, if cultivated, will 
bring rich returns, and there lies the principal 
fault. 

If every automobile manufacturer succeeded 
like Henry Ford then we would all be wanting to 
go into the business ; but they do not all succeed, 
though they may make as good a machine as that 
put out by the Ford works. If every oil venture 
was a success then we would all be John D. Rocke- 
fellers; but the financial cemeteries of the coun- 
try are absolutely filled to overflowing with oil 
operators and prospectors who failed, while John 
D. Rockefeller succeeded. 

The dangerous feature of letting the slogan be 
distributed broadcast is that it will reach the eye of 
the overworked miner, the rheumatic carpenter, the 
dyspeptic clerk, the sick mill man, and that these, 
without counting the cost, figure that all that is 
necessary for them to do is simply to send their 
money down, secure the title to the ground, and 
then move on to their little principality and be- 
gin living high; and they overlook the fact that 
this cannot be done in any other part of the known 
world — that if they buy a farm in Indiana or New 
York they have to cultivate it with a great deal 
of care in order to get returns. They lose sight 
of the fact that if they cease working for a minute 
in any ordinary avocation that just at that par- 



'' TEN ACRES AND INDEPENDENCE " 139 

ticular minute the pay stops; but they are influ- 
enced by the glamour that accompanies much of 
Florida publicity and jump at the conclusion that 
here at last in this green land, just this side of the 
** Pearly Gates,'' they can quit work and yet live. 
It is unfortunate. Some have found the fallacy 
before they moved ; others have faced it when they 
reached their land and saw nothing but work was 
their salvation ; and the country would have been 
vastly better off, Florida would have been genera- 
tions ahead in improvement, and many a poor man 
would have been satisfied instead of being a mal- 
content if he could have borne in mind the time- 
worn edict that man must eat his bread in the 
sweat of his face. 

The same class of demagogic traffickers in an- 
other line of business, steamboat agents, is respon- 
sible in a large measure for the great hordes of 
ne'er-do-wells that throng our shores from Euro- 
pean and Asiatic countries, telling the oppressed 
people that in America everything is free, that 
work is easy and wages high, and that all they 
have to do is to rake up enough to pay steamboat 
fare to America, and there they will be rich. These 
people wake up on Ellis Island and find themselves 
out of money — with no work, unacquainted with 
the language, with no knowledge of the country, 
and it is little wonder that many of them retain 
the anarchistic seed that has been planted on the 
other side, and that it takes generations to prove 



140 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

that we have everything over here that mortal man 
could wish, but that it is not free, and that man 
gets his day\s wages after his day's work is done. 

The question arises. Should the poor man go to 
Florida ? Well, yes, but the question ought to have 
a large capital limitation to it. The man without 
any money had better stay right where he is, par- 
ticularly if he is among friends, because Florida 
is not the place for him. This is another reck- 
less, extravagant use of words that has prevailed 
in much of the advertising literature. There has 
been a sinister idea expressed, or at least, im- 
plied, that this is a poor man's paradise, that it 
took no money, that it took little work, and there 
is a very well defined notion that lots of people 
who have migrated to Florida have done so with 
the idea of divesting themselves of all efforts. Such 
people have often ridden back on freight trains — 
and they ought to do so, unless they are made to 
walk, for there ought to be no part of the world 
where a man can feel he is entitled to his daily 
bread without working for it. 

Florida is no place for a poor man, that is, for 
a man without any money. It is the place for a 
man in moderate circumstances, the one who has 
a little money, enough to take care of himself until 
his ground begins to produce; but if he goes to 
Florida flat broke he will become a public charge, 
just as he would in any state in the Union unless 
he fortunately finds somebody who can give him 



'' TEN ACRES AND INDEPENDENCE " 141 

work. It is not to be concluded that Florida ap- 
peals to the rich ; for while there are many well-to- 
do people migrating to that state, some have win- 
ter quarters and live there the year around, yet 
Florida's strongest appeal is to the man of mod- 
erate means, and that appeal is to the very mill 
men and office men, and others mentioned just 
above. These men can do well in Florida. They 
can get away from conditions that are under- 
mining their health, they can get out where com- 
petition is not so severe, they can raise their fami- 
lies under the most fortunate circumstances, but 
they must not attempt to realize this dream of ten 
acres and independence without either money or 
work, and they should have some of both. And 
it is only fair to say that no part of the Union 
offers greater inducements to the man who is 
willing to work, and who has a little bit of cash 
to maintain himself while his crops are coming 
on than Florida; and it would be a heaven-sent 
blessing if these hands of the sweat shop, toilers 
in our great industrial centers would throw down 
their tools, take their savings with them and go 
to Florida and begin cultivating the soil ; and men 
like this with the spirit of the hardy pioneers, and 
with one-tenth of the work that these pioneers 
put into the soil, will realize the dream of inde- 
pendence that comes from the proper cultivation 
of a small piece of ground under such wonderful 
climatic conditions. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE AUTOMOBILIST 'S DREAM. 

During the twenty years of the popular life of 
the automobile, since it came to be the vehicle 
of the man of moderate means, the country has 
made 150 years' progress in the building of good 
roads. 

Florida is not only a state **of magnificent dis- 
tances ' ' but its topography and structure are such 
that roads are easily built. A road that would 
cost $20,000 per mile in West Virginia could be 
built for $2,000 a mile in Florida. There are 
practically no hills, few rivers to cross, no sticky 
clay, and it is a question of only a few years un- 
til Florida will be honeycombed with hard roads. 
They have caught the step with the foremost states 
in the spirit of road-building and are many paces 
ahead of three-fourths of the states in the Union 
in this regard. 

The old Florida road was a fright. It came by 
chance, was laid out by caprice, and existed by 
necessity. It was nothing more or less than two 
gutters cut in the sand, and usually cut in the 
most erratic manner, indicating that the original 
pedestrian or teamster who trod out the path was 
on the border of delirium tremens. In later years, 

142 



THE AUTOMOBILIST'S DREAM 143 

when the automobilist came along, if he followed 
the zig zag course, he could keep going, provided 
his wheels had the same tread as the wagon which 
went before him, but if he once got out of the 
sandruts it generally took a mule team to get him 
back into one. 

This was the Florida road of yesterday. It was 
followed by the sawdust road. It is surprising 
what an improvement a six-inch layer of ordi- 
nary sawdust makes on a Florida sand road, but 
there is just all the difference in the world be- 
tween the old sand road and what Billy Sunday 
might term the *^ sawdust trail." The sawdust 
road was followed by the pine cone road. Outside 
of starting fires in the kitchen stoves, this was the 
only use of a practical nature, to which the pine 
cone was ever diverted. But it made a better road 
than the old sand highway. 

The Florida road of tomorrow will be an ideal- 
ist 's dream of easy travel. Talk about energy 
and faith, and nerve, and grasp of the future, 
those people in Florida have it. They have seen 
a vision of a new state. They have caught the 
spirit of progress, and it doesn't make any differ- 
ence how heavily burdened the county is, how 
seemingly adverse the crop situation, how poor 
the prospects, or how remote the county is from 
the great centers, those fellows that make up the 
bone and sinew, the brain and brawn of the Flor- 
ida counties, are right in the forefront of the 



144 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

ranks that are clamoring for hard roads. Hills- 
boro county is, of course, one of the more densely 
populated, and it is a pace setter. Duval county 
is not far behind. Call the roll of the counties 
and almost everyone will answer **yes'' on the 
question of good road building. Hillsboro county, 
several years ago, voted a million dollars for brick 
county road paving. Orange county has built its 
county roads largely of brick. For years, the auto- 
mobilist has been skimming along the East Coast 
on delightful shell roads. 

The ordinary hard road, or clay road, is a sim- 
ple structure in Florida because the materials are 
omnipresent. Be it known that throughout the 
state, just underneath the covering of sand vary- 
ing from 18 inches to five feet, there is a layer of 
clay, sometimes known as hard pan. This clay 
mixed with the common sand, makes a very pass- 
able, hard-surfaced road, and many hundreds of 
miles of this road have been built in all parts of 
the state ; but progress is progress and the best is 
none too good; so the advanced thinkers and 
shrewd business men of the state have even gotten 
beyond the ordinary clay road. It is being super- 
seded now by the sand oil road, the macadam road, 
the asphalt road, and the brick paved highway. 
Compared with her ability and with the territory 
they have to cover, Florida is spending more 
money on permanent highways than any state in 
the Union. 



THE AUTOMOBILIST'S DREAM 145 

The Dixie Highway is the supreme effort at an 
alignment of all the various highways into a given 
course. It is rapidly tunneling its way through 
the solid South. It is making strides through 
Florida and will finally reach its uttermost South- 
ern cities. Someone has said that he never struck 
a Southern city where he was not met at the city 
gates, given the glad hand, and informed at once 
that the city he was in had the supreme distinc- 
tion of being on the celebrated Dixie Highway. 
This is putting it jocosely, but it does illustrate 
the avidity with which the Southern part of our 
republic has taken to the idea of good roads. 

Let's see how this idea begins to form, and take 
on consistence, and how it begins to commercialize. 
Let's reduce it to the least common denominator 
and see whether it will show on the cash register, 
and in the bank account of the Floridian. 

In the first place, it gives a rapid, economical, 
and reliable way of getting roads to and from the 
market. It has taken a volley of logic, and argu- 
ment, and persuasion to punch this idea into the 
heads of farmers in some parts of the country 
but it is gradually going through. The Florida 
grower has not been hard to convince. 

But there is another item worth figuring. Flor- 
ida people are entertainers. Their country abounds 
in hotels. They send out invitations broadcast for 
the rest of the world to come and see them, par- 
ticularly in the winter season. Large numbers 



146 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

accept the invitation. If the Dixie Highway, an 
all the year dependable, easy graded, hard sur- 
faced road was completed through to Jackson- 
ville on to Miami, down to Tampa and Fort Myers, 
out to Tallahassee, and Pensacola, and to the other 
traveled sections of the State, there would be dur- 
ing this next winter, no less than 100,000 auto- 
mobiles. Fords, and otherwise, loaded with excur- 
sionists bound for Florida, and they would go 
through the state, drinking in its scenery, visiting 
its resorts, patronizing its hotels and stores, at- 
tending its playhouses, buying its fancy fruits 
and dropping coins at every turn of the road aside 
from amounts deposited with Rockefeller for gaso- 
line and every cash register in the State would 
feel the impulse of a new life as the result of this 
visitation. More than that, these people would 
be repaid a hundredfold for the outdoor journey 
and would go back to their homes renewed and 
invigorated. 

Good roads pay. They pay the builder and the 
traveler. If Florida, with other supreme vantage 
points, was still fenced in with ancient sand roads, 
it would be a hopeless case. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE BOOSTER SPIRIT. 

All tlie world loves a lover, and all the world 
admires a booster. The booster is a distinctly 
American species ; he may have imitators in some 
of the wornout monarchies on the other side, but 
his characteristics are distinctly American. 

Florida is the native home, the birthplace, the 
congenial atmosphere, the permanent abiding place 
of the booster. 

It is the proper spirit, and it pays. When we 
drop into a little town and talk to some sour- 
grained, cloudy-visaged dyspeptic, fault-finding 
fossil who begins by criticizing everything about 
the town, apologizing for this and that, and tell- 
ing how much better some other place is, we set 
it down that that fellow ought to move on to some 
place that he does like, and usually a good, well- 
kept cemetery is the best place for him. Our ceme- 
teries are just simply yawning for that sort of 
people, and nobody ever misses them. 

You do not find many of this class in Florida ; 
the fellow who dropped in from Minneapolis day 
before yesterday, run around the town a few 
hours, got acquainted with a few of the leading 
people, and secured a regular boarding place, bobs 

147 



148 :WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

up at the station tlie next morning a full-fledged 
member of the reception committee, grabs the first 
man who gets off by the hand and begins telling 
him what a good town we have, what a splendid 
school system, how large the groves are, what big 
shipments of vegetables were made last week, 
about the new waterworks and the electric lisfht 
plant, and the new school building. The spirit is 
contagious; the man just oif the train catches it 
and begins to like everything he sees. It is this 
spirit that builds up towns and cities, and com- 
munities, and states. 

Every little city in Florida has its Board of 
Trade, its Chamber of Commerce, or some such 
organization with a **pull together^' spirit, and it 
is amazing what attractive circulars and folders 
and booklets can be gotten out regarding the most 
unpretentious municipality. They do not prevari- 
cate. They merely see to it that none of that fine 
flavor that should accompany the truth is lost. 
They catalogue every strong point, and overlook 
the weak ones, if there be any. 

It is a splendid spirit of hopeful community- 
building and state enhancement that prevails in 
Florida. It is the spirit that would make any- 
thing succeed. It is a good atmosphere to move 
into. It is this encouraging attitude, this royal 
welcome to the newcomer that has hit the sunny 
side of many a man who went to Florida simply 
to stay a week or two weeks, but which caused 



THE BOOSTER SPIRIT 149 

him to buy property, establish a home, get into 
business, become a part of the boosters' organiza- 
tion, and to immediately engage in writing letters 
back home to the fellows he knew, telling them 
that you couldn't hire him to live any place else 
in the world. 

The good old Florida ** Cracker" is a solid, sub- 
stantial, reliable citizen. He is not given to ex- 
uberance, or boosting, naturally. But so many 
people from so many states have adopted Florida 
as their home, and have become the **01d Timers'' 
that you cannot tell now who-is-who or where he 
came from, and they all join heartily in the chorus. 



Newspaper ofidces keep this line in type, as a 
necessary part of the ad of every real estate man 
and community. It is one of those mystic things 
that you read about and never quite see, like the 
bread line in the big cities and the life line that 
they sing about throwing out at the revival meet- 
ings. A hundred places in the state appear cheer- 
fully and confidently before the public in the 
unique announcement that they are ** below the 
frost line. ' ' They are not. The only reliable frost 
line that can be depended on is the equator. 

Of course whimsical reports that skaters have 
broken through the ice at Daytona and been 
drowned, and other vagaries of the funny men 
are to be taken for what they are worth. 



150 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

There is no frost line in Florida, no place that 
is immune from an occasional nip of this dread 
visitor. Conunnnities have been free for years 
and about the time they began to get puffed up 
and to feel that they were on the safe side, a little 
frost has come along some night and cut down a 
few acres of tomatoes or peas and taken the wind 
out of their sails. 

It must have been this feeling of security which 
preceded the freeze that came in February, 1895. 
Florida at that time was devoted to one crop — 
oranges. Its whole fortune was staked on the 
one bet. It lost. The freeze came. Hundreds of 
grove owners were wrecked. Many of them gave 
up hope and turned their steps north. It was a 
dismal scene. It showed that even a freeze is 
not absolutely impossible in Florida. Nor is an 
earthquake impossible in California, nor a disas- 
trous tidal wave impossible at Galveston. Calami- 
ties know no bounds. If the world quit when a 
calamity overtakes a given section there would be 
lots of abandoned sections of the land. The Missis- 
sippi valley would be a manless desert. The Ohio 
valley would be deserted. The fields of Kansas 
and Nebraska would be turned over to the coyote. 
There are no sur^ things when you deal with 
nature. 

It is said that the morning after the freeze, 
when the disheartened orchardists gathered them- 
selves around their little fires, and looked on the 



THE BOOSTER SPIRIT 151 

desolation that the ice had wrought, they were 
hopeless and despondent. They saw no hope of 
rebuilding their fortunes. It would take at least 
five years to make producing groves again. What 
were they to do for a livelihood in the meantime? 
Some of them remembered that they had pack- 
ages of seeds in their trunks and bureau drawers, 
brought with them or sent to them by generously 
disposed congressmen. They had been confining 
their attention to the one crop. They had taken 
it for granted that the soil was adapted to noth- 
ing else. But necessity overlooks tradition. They 
got out their seeds. The mocking sun was com- 
ing down with its old time fervor. They scratched 
out patches here and there and sprinkled a little 
fertilizer around. In six weeks some of them had 
lettuce and beans and other garden products. The 
freeze had brought its lesson. It had turned Flor- 
ida from dependence on one crop to a variety and 
from that day on the Florida gardener has kept 
experimenting until he has arrived at this fortu- 
nate situation. If a freeze should visit the state 
again, and this is only the remotest possibility- 
it might take one crop, or all that was in the 
ground at the time, but it would not be over eight 
weeks until Florida would bob up serenely and 
have another harvest ready for the markets. 

There is no section of the state absolutely free 
from the chance of a frost. They have them at 
Miami, hundreds of miles south of Jacksonville, 



152 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

They have them at Sarasota, far down the gulf. 
They are not frequent nor do they do much dam- 
age, but they have them. It is only once in a long 
while that vegetation suffers from the chill. The 
tomatoes occasionally go down. The tenderer and 
more humid of the vegetables may wilt, but it has 
been many a long year since the oranges were af- 
fected adversely by a cool spell. 

In the higher land, on the ridge that runs 
through Polk, Orange, Lake, and other counties, 
and especially where there are large fresh water 
lakes, the sting of the frost is tempered to such 
an extent that its effect is negligible, but, still, 
there is now and then a little cold spell, when 
the thermometer wobbles down around the 35 
mark Fahrenheit, and the trucker looks and feels 
uneasy. Whenever a big blizzard is reported as 
holding the north in its grasp, and the newspapers 
bring reports of below zero throughout the land, 
it may be counted that the scattered fringe of 
the storm, the wake, the aftermath, will touch 
even Florida, and an extra wrap will not be out 
of place. 

* ^ Below the Frost Line ' ' is a misnomer. * ^ They 
ain't any sich animal.*' The best engineer on 
earth cannot traverse the state with his instru- 
ments and lay oif any line that will approximate 
the statement. The frost, in a slight measure, will 
hit this locality or that once in a while, and will 
chill the crops. It does not frequently do damage 



THE BOOSTER SPIRIT 153 

that amounts to anything. In the southern part 
of the state it is infrequent and practically harm- 
less. In the northern sections it is rare, but there 
is no place that can truthfully say it has not seen 
a white covering on the roofs and the ground once 
in a while. 

It is not a menace. It does little damage. It 
is hardly a factor that the prospective investor 
needs to deal with in his calculations, but there is 
no use kidding ourselves into the notion that frost 
does not exist. 

THE OTHER EXTREME. 

And, on the other hand, while weather is the 
topic, the old supposition that a man would bum 
up if he braved a summer in Florida has been 
set aside along with all the other exploded theories 
that have been laid on the shelf by investigation. 

Since Tampa is about the geographical center 
of the state, or at least not far south of that point, 
let us compare Tampa heat with that of some 
other places. When the weather bureau began 
publishing daily statements of the weather 
throughout the country, and a chance for compari- 
son was given, it was at last realized that the tem- 
perature of Florida never reached the excessive 
figures that were frequently shown in many north- 
ern cities. Take Los Angeles, on the west coast, 
for purposes of comparison. Los Angeles is a 
city of half a million people, built upon climate as 



154 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

its chief asset. Yet the official weather bureau 
records show that during the year, when the heat 
in that city reached the excessive figure of 109 
degrees, and the lowest point reached during the 
winter was 29 degrees, a range of 80 degrees, the 
highest point recorded in Tampa was 94 degrees 
and the lowest point 32, a range of 62 degrees. 
The highest point reached in Tampa since the rec- 
ords have been kept, covering many years, is 96 
degrees. Many cities in the farther north report 
the thermometer at times as high as 100 and some 
even higher, and these cities report numerous in- 
stances of sunstroke and heat prostrations, while 
such a thing is not known in Florida. 

Florida 's hottest month is usually April. Some- 
times March is continuously very warm. In mid- 
summer the excessive heat is broken by the daily 
rains. The nights throughout the year are cool. 
There is a good breeze blowing from ocean and 
gulf and Fort Myers is a cooler spot than New 
York or Chicago in August. The heat of the day 
is intense, but the shade is also vivid. Those who 
have lived for years in the central states and then 
taken up their residence in Florida have uniformly 
reported that, so far as the heat was concerned, 
they were much more comfortable in the latter 
state during the summer hot spell. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

floeida's call. 

It comes to all the people some of the time, and 
to some of the people all the time. * * For his gayer 
hours she has a smile and gladness and beauty, 
and she glides into his darker musings with a heal- 
ing, an unknown sympathy which steals away their 
sharpness ere he is aware. ^' It has a peculiarly 
subtle charm from many standpoints for many 
people. 

It is a varying call, a strong, persuasive, com- 
pelling call, that is answered generously, at least 
in the winter months. This beckoning hand is 
strongest to the nomad, the wanderer, the foot 
loose, who tire of the monotonous, dry scenes of 
routine life and who feel the wanderlust in their 
bones. They want to get away, to go some place, 
to experience a change of scene. The West 
Coast, the Land of the Setting Sun, has its myriad 
attractions, but California is three thousand miles 
away, while Florida is only 24 hours from Cincin- 
nati, 30 hours from Cleveland, 30 from Chicago, 
30 from Philadelphia. It is easy to take the trip, 
so, when the first flurries of snow come, and the 
chilly blasts begin to creep out of the north, the 
nomad begins to pack up and to look over time- 

155 



156 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

tables and hotel rates in the South. In a very 
short time he is on the wing, and he lights at a 
gay hotel, or by the side of a little lake, or on 
one of the keys along the coast, and nestles down 
to enjoy the winter. 

What a panorama opens up to the visitor. What 
numberless places taunt him with their peculiar 
attractions. How he often wanders from one to 
the other, flitting about as he follows the impulse 
of the hour. 

He can wander around the quaint little thor- 
oughfares of old St. Augustine, explore the for- 
tress, the moat, the old mission, the slave market, 
hear the bands in the park, sail on the Indian 
Eiver, mingle with the throngs that wander around 
the princely gardens of the Ponce de Leon or the 
Alcazar, or he can rest on the cliffs and watch 
the surges of old ocean roll in at Sea Breeze, or 
enjoy the moonlight from the deck of the steamer 
as she winds her way slowly up the majestic St. 
Johns, or can creep along the jungle course of 
the weird and mystic Oklawaha up to the famous 
Silver Spring from which the river has its source, 
or can play golf at Bellair on the finest course in 
the country, or hunt ducks up the Caloosahatchie, 
or join the millionaires in their gay pastimes on 
the broad verandas and in the spacious parlors of 
the Royal Poinciana or the Breakers or the Tampa 
Bay. He can hunt out some little hamlet in the 
quiet of the woods, alongside some sparkling little 



FLORIDA'S CALL 157 

lake and there while away the hours in peace and 
contentment, or join the multitudes who sit with 
rod and reel along the docks at St. Petersburg, or 
can sequester himself from the passing throngs by 
plunging into the forest primeval, taking his camp 
equipment and wandering days and weeks far 
from the habitation of man, far into the pathless 
jungles, under the pines and cypress, and can hunt 
and fish to his hearths content. He can find me- 
dicinal springs flowing like rivers from the bowels 
of the earth, their waters good for the healing of 
the nations, or sulphur streams forcing their way 
up from the ground through artesian conduits, or 
can while away the time amid groves redolent with 
the heavy perfume of the orange, and in nooks 
where the wild flower and bright plumaged bird 
are his only companions. He can go into the far 
away lumber camps, through the turpentine dis- 
tricts where the negroes have their humble shacks 
and where they live a free and easy life, or, join 
the multitudes as they throng the thoroughfares 
of busy cities. There is no lack of variety or in- 
terest. Tropical verdure, serene sunshine, blue 
skies, ocean breezes, sparkling lakes, dense jun- 
gles, wide stretches of prairie fringed with jagged 
trees, sandy beaches, rolling surges, they are all 
there and are for the enjoyment of the man who 
seeks them. 

In thousands of instances the call comes, not 
entirely because of a desire for change, but there 



158 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

is added to it a pair of weak lungs, made so by 
exposure to the elements, a tendency to catarrh, 
ailing bronchial tubes, and the doctor says that 
the sudden transition from hot to cold and cold 
to hot in the northern states, shortens life, im- 
pairs health, weaken lungs, and breaks down 
strong constitutions, while the evener temperature 
of the farther south, the constant sunshine, the 
outdoor life, the invigorating breezes, bring back 
health and vigor, as well as give rest and recrea- 
tion and change. How long will it take us to learn 
that an ounce of prevention is cheaper than a 
pound of cure, that a lung saved in the early stages 
of a sickness is worth something and a lung taken 
to some high altitude after it is too late is worth- 
less? How infinitely better it would be to pre- 
vent sickness rather than to cure it. How long 
will it take us to learn that sunshine and outdoor 
life are the antidotes that nature has provided 
for declining health and weakened constitutions? 
Many hear the call of health and they strike out 
for the place where it may be found. 

So it is that by the time January is well started 
the railroads have called into action all their avail- 
able equipment for handling the swarming multi- 
tudes that are Florida bound. The little hotels 
in a hundred cities and by the side of a thousand 
lakes, and along the gulf, and the Atlantic, have 
brushed up the rooms, tidied up the parlor, re- 
newed the cupboard, and made the porch look 



FLORIDA'S CALL 159 

' ^ homey. ^' The alert host and the smiling hostess 
stand with outstretched hand to welcome the com- 
ing guest. 

Where economy is a factor to be reckoned with 
subterfuges are naturally indulged. The whole 
winter's sojourn is accomplished with very little 
outlay by thousands. They choose their place, rent 
a room, do their own cooking in chafing dish fash- 
ion, and have earned the sobriquet of *^tin can 
tourists." The name has just the least tinge of 
criticism in it and yet it is rarely deserved. Of 
course there are hard-fisted old tightwads who 
want to get through without spending anything, 
but in many cases the trip indulged in by the so- 
called tin-can tourist is one that has been ordered 
by the family doctor and it must be taken with 
great caution to the pocket book. These persons 
find that they can go to Florida and spend the 
winter with almost as little expense as they would 
incur by staying at home. 

From January until April the hotels are surg- 
ing with guests, the boarding houses are full, the 
bungalows, the cottages, the shacks, the outdoor 
cabins are all crowded to capacity. The sunshine 
floods in and sickness backs out. Life and health 
come through outdoor wandering. Fat old ladies 
sit on the front porch and tat or tattle as the 
case may be — ^usually both — but the others wan- 
der around, searching for enjoyment and finding 
health. 



160 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

Along the wharfs of a thousand little ports, up 
the quays, along the bayous, down the creeks, along 
the inlets, in boats and on the banks they are there 
in solid phalanx, with fishing poles and rods and 
reels and minnows, and worms, and fiddlers and 
sometimes with bottled bait, waiting for a bite. 
Occasionally somebody brings in a good one. The 
pelicans and gulls wheel around in the air above 
them. Then home, as the sun begins to set, for 
they cannot go in the dusk. There is no dusk or 
no gloaming in Florida. It is light and then it is 
dark, with no half-lighted intermission between. 
They fight off monotony and restlessness, and so, 
the winter goes, with its diversions, its excursions, 
its games, its revelings, its tramps, its sunshine 
baths, its lake and river and surf baths, its par- 
ties, its strolls in the moonlight, its incursions into 
the neighboring groves, its fish fries, its boating, 
its automobile drives, and its merry crowd around 
the little pine cone fire in the evening. 

When the newspapers **up home'' along in 
March and April, begin to talk about setting out 
garden, house-cleaning, and to give notice of the 
early approach of spring the majority fold their 
tents, and start on the home trail. Each year a 
large number who went down, are so pleased with 
the surroundings, so satisfied with health and liv- 
ing conditions, that they stay, and so the popula- 
tion statistics are being made up from that influx 
of sturdy citizens who have made successes in 



FLORIDA'S CALL 161 

other states, in mine and mill and factory and 
store, and on the farm, and this kind transplants 
their homes, and the next we hear of them they are 
boosting for Florida, just as they have formerly 
boosted for Keokuk, Kalamazoo or Kansas City. 

The call comes hauntingly to the sportsman, the 
angler, the disciple of old Isaac Walton, the man 
whose instincts run back to the time when all men 
made their livelihood by the chase or with the 
net. Some of us still have traces of that primal 
tendency towards the semi-barbaric, and education 
and culture do not remove them completely. It is 
not intimated that because a man is a confirmed 
hunter or angler that he is therefore part savage, 
but, just the same, it is the tendency of our fore- 
bears, coming down through the strains of blood 
through countless generations, that keeps the rod 
and the gun in such constant use. Your rod and 
reel angler can hardly explore a nook or cranny 
of the state where he is not within speaking dis- 
tance of lakes filled with the smaller varieties of 
fish. If he is a game sportsman, looking for the 
fish that fights, such as the tarpon and the king 
fish, and possibly the shark, he can have sport to 
his heart's content, and he does not have to be 
particular in which direction he goes. This sport 
abounds around every key, along every shore, 
around every island, for this kind of fishing is to 
be had all along the twelve hundred miles of sea 
coast belonging to the state. 



162 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

The huntsman can lose himself in vast boun- 
daries of timber, can wander through pine forests 
or amid cypress swamps, can penetrate the path- 
less jungles of the more remote sections, and will 
there find such game as will keep him busy. He 
does not need to be continually on the lookout for 
the irate farmer and the dread *^ posted'' sign 
that is tacked so promiscuously all over the fields 
of other and older states. He can wander about 
for days and nights, careless of cold, sleeping in 
the open if he wishes, and can find plenty of game, 
little and big, depending upon the distance from 
known habitations that he cares to go. Many dis- 
tinguished business barons and public men have 
their lodges and hunting quarters in Florida, to 
which they have for years gone for their annual 
hunt. To the sportsman Florida presents a field 
full of adventure and possibility, full of satisfac- 
tion such as comes to the man who has bagged 
his game. 

Another class hears the call to Florida. 
Throughout the length and breadth of the nation 
and in many parts of the Dominion north there 
are throngs of people, who have hoarded con- 
sistently through many years; they have saved 
something for a rainy day. The children have 
perhaps married and gone off to homes of their 
own, or they may have died and left vacant chairs 
staring the old couple in the face, and the sunset 
is just over the hill. These couples have denied 



FLORIDA'S CALL 163 

themselves luxuries and even comforts through 
many years because they were bracing themselves 
against the future when the period of production 
had passed. They have dreamed and talked 
throughout the long winter evenings of a little 
grove, a vine covered cottage, a little lake, some 
flowers, some chickens, a garden, a cow, health, 
contentment and plenty, some place in a dream- 
land where they could be free from the rigors and 
hardships of a long and bleak winter. They have 
dreamed a dream of Arcadia. It all seemed fan- 
tastic and unreal and impossible, but one day they 
learned that it was just as practicable as to live 
where they had been so many years, and that all 
the little touches that embellish a life of rest would 
be theirs at moderate cost. Increasing numbers 
of these people are settling on lake side and river, 
on coast and key, in various parts of Florida, in- 
tending to spend their declining days in quiet. 
They provide themselves with some satisfactory 
employment, the care of a small grove and garden, 
a flock of chickens, a cow, and are fixed to live 
an ideal existence. 

Then there are many young and vigorous cou- 
ples who look on this as a coming land, where the 
chances for advancement are much more rapid 
than in the older centers, so the vigor of youth is 
looking to Florida for a home and a place in which 
to carve out a fortune. There are large numbers 
of young men going there to take up a tract, in- 



164 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

vesting their muscle, their sweat, their thought. 
They build modestly, live economically, work hard. 
They keep holding on and to these there is the bag 
of gold at the end of the rainbow, for intelligent 
eifort in Florida brings big dividends. 

Florida calls to the farmer. How many a time, 
at eventide, after fourteen hours of strenuous 
work, the tiller of the soil on one of those little 
mountain farms, those hillside farms, in Tennes- 
see or Kentucky or the Virginias, or along the 
foothills of the Alleghenies, after such work on 
the precipitous patch that he cultivates, has longed 
for a level piece of ground, where he might plow 
to his heart's content, without having one leg grow 
longer than the other, or where he could use a 
sulky plow or haul his crops into the barn in an 
ordinary road wagon. Energy put into the soil 
comes out in dividends. Energy expended in clam- 
bering up the sides of mountains and over cliffs 
to get a little patch of com to growing is largely 
wasted. If a living can be extracted between the 
bluffs and on the side of the mountains, amid the 
rocks and crags and gullies, how much more rea- 
sonable to suppose that it can be brought forth 
from level, responsive soil, with the aid of a sun 
that matures the year round. Florida has a sunny 
smile for the iron muscled, earnest, intelligent, 
studious farmer. The indomitable and uncon- 
querable spirit that will bring forth food for the 
family in the frowning fields of the mountain 



FLORIDA'S CALL 165 

ranges will make a Florida farm bulge out with 
fatness. 

Florida has a clarion call for the investor. 

What new country does not! 

Think of the fortunes that are pouring into the 
laps of those long-sighted men who, a few years 
ago, went into the mountainous districts of Ten- 
nessee and eastern Kentucky and West Virginia 
and bought up immense acreages of coal and tim- 
ber territory for a song, ahead of the coming of the 
railroads. Lands that were bought at $1.00 to 
$5.00 an acre are rated today at $100 to $1,000 an 
acre. The fortunes came through foresight and 
buying ahead of development. 

A well-to-do doctor from central Ohio spent 
some time in Florida and looked at real estate in 
different sections. The real estate men pointed 
out the supreme advantages of certain fast grow- 
ing towns, but he was not interested. They lav- 
ished language on the importance of developed 
grove sections, but he did not fall for them. He 
finally explained that he had a grandson in whose 
future he was deeply interested and what he 
wanted was to buy something which would not 
develop soon, but which would make a patrimony 
for the growing boy. He was investing in futuri- 
ties, and few can appreciate how wisely he had 
spoken. Florida has untold acres of **wild lands,'' 
far from the plow and fertilizer, laying in dense 
woods and as yet unthought of by the lot salesman 



166 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

or the colonist. As tlie circle of development 
widens it brings these lands a little nearer in with 
each revolving season. One of these days they 
will be in the center of things. Then look out. 
This was the case with Miami. In 1896, when 
Flagler 's road reached that point it found a strag- 
gling town, a little store or two and a few score of 
people. Some gifted men bought substantial acre- 
ages at the time and pursued a watchful waiting 
policy. Those tracts are today in the center of 
the city and it would take mints of money to buy 
them. 

In a smaller way the same thing is true of every 
square mile in the state. Where yesterday was 
a logging camp or a turpentine still, today is a 
small town, soon a thriving little city. Where the 
pine forest held undisputed sway last year, the 
young grove is planted today and tomorrow it will 
be an agricultural center. The ground that could 
have been acquired yesterday at $10 or $25 an 
acre is now quoted at $150. 

The fringe of the towns is an attractive place 
for the man with a little money. The center has 
reached its maximum, or is at least priced suffi- 
ciently high, but the outlying lands are generally 
very moderate, and the towns are enlarging their 
circumference rapidly. The garden of last week 
is the subdivision of this week. Someone starts 
building a home. Soon the garden is thickly set- 
tled with people and the original investment has 



FLORIDA'S CALL 167 

been doubled, trebled, quadrupled. A concrete 
illustration. A party laid off a field just outside 
of one of Polk county's lesser cities two or three 
years ago. He offered it to some northern people 
at a price which averaged $15 a lot. There were 
300 lots. The writer saw the last of that bunch 
of lots sold and the price on the last one disposed 
of was $225 ; quite a little advance for a property 
held only three years. Duplicates of this can be 
furnished in practically every city and town of 
the state. It is not plunging or real estate lottery 
or boosting or promoting or high financing. The 
increase simply comes from two facts. The prices 
on acreage have been comparatively low. The 
people have flowed into the state in such numbers 
that the demand for building sites was heavy. The 
profits have resulted naturally. 

Every reading of the horoscope indicates that 
only the advance of the army of the hosts com- 
ing into the state for temporary or permanent 
homes has reached its destination and if this is 
true, there are few places on the globe which ought 
to offer better opportunities for investment in 
the next decade or two. 

A man with a little money can do more with it 
in Florida than is possible in the older and more 
compactly built states because investments have 
not been pawed over and sorted out and laid aside 
and tried out. Things are novel and interesting 
and there is a spirit of taking hold of things. 



168 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

History may decline to repeat itself but hand- 
some piles have been made out of the phosphate 
lands that persist in some ten counties. The same 
thing that happened to the wild coal lands of east- 
ern Kentucky occurred in connection with these 
phosphate beds. The discovery of phosphate beds 
was something of an accident. Their discovery 
at present is the result of persistent search. At 
the beginning large boundaries of supposed phos- 
phate lands were picked up at a merely nominal 
price. Many of these could not be bought now 
for $1,000 an acre. There may be a million acres 
of phosphate beds yet that no one has stumbled 
on to. This is one of the imminent possibilities, 
while the long held theory that some day Florida 
would develop another oil field, like that at Beau- 
mont, may be classed as one of the remoter im- 
probabilities. You never can tell. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



'^it's up to you/' 



We have endeavored to set things down as they 
are, not to gloss over, or unduly praise. Florida 
is a part of the * * old South. * ' Heaven grant that 
it may never lose all the marks of the antebellum 
days. The old diamond stack locomotive is there, 
on some of the shorter branch railroads. The 
little log road with its wire rails is there. The 
lazy, shiftless nigger is there, so is the indifferent, 
languicJ^^okingT^self^atlsfied cracker. He is in 
the minority, it is true, but he is still there. The 
sleepy little town, with its coterie of loafers around 
the postoffice, is there. The big black buzzard 
sweeps watchfully over the tree tops and roofs, 
looking for dead ones, and sometimes finding one. 
It has all the air, the coloring, the characteristics 
of the extreme South. That is what makes it at- 
tractive to the average visitor. Remove these land- 
marks and one had as well be in Massachusetts on 
a hot day. We hope that Florida will never en- 
tirely lose its color as an old-time Southern state. 
Put the livest wire from the most up-to-the-minute 
section in the world down there and he imbibes 
some of this go-easy spirit after a time. He does 
not get indolent or lazy, but he comes down to the 

169 



170 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

office a little later in the morning, and goes back 
home a little earlier in the evening, and finds more 
time to stop and pass the time of day with his 
acquaintances. He makes friends and learns that 
friendship is fed on pleasant talks at frequent 
intervals. He loses the restless, alert, impas- 
sioned way he had of making the dirt fly and 
adopts the serener course of taking his time so as 
not to wear out the machinery too soon. He gets 
along just as fast, makes as much money in the 
long run and has a great deal better time doing 
it. 

This little book was written to put Florida in 
its real and actual light, so far as residence, ac- 
quaintance, travel, study and inquiry from a thou- 
sand sources could do it. It was not intended 
solely and primarily to tear a man loose from his 
moorings in the North or East or West, but to 
show him how things average up in a state whicfh 
has uniformly been little understood by the mass 
of people. 

It was not the purpose to fill it with figures 
and statistics, for there are enough of these al- 
ready published to fill an encyclopedia. It has 
not been the object to hold out to the tourist or 
visitor or prospective tiller of the soil a land 
flowing with milk and honey. The milk is there, 
but you have to keep driving up the cow and milk- 
ing her. The honey is there, but no apiaries are 
found wild. If some of the romantic literature of 



** IT'S UP TO YOU '* 171 

some of the promoting corporations have given 
rise to the dream that a man could live in Florida 
without money or work, it is just as well to wake 
up this side of Jacksonville. Every man and 
woman has to give consideration to the question 
of meal tickets. Whenever you see one who is 
not perturbed on this subject, set it down either 
that he has done serious work in his time and has 
gathered together a competence, or — that some- 
body is putting up the meal tickets for him. A 
man cannot live without work in Michigan or 
Colorado. Neither can he in Florida, although he 
can get along in the latter state with fewer clothes 
and a cheaper house, and the cost of living gener- 
ally is lower in Florida than in many of the states. 

Agriculturally, Florida has a soil that will pro- 
duce things, as the statistics show, and a climate 
that is equable. Divested of all the fanciful things 
that have been said about miraculous production 
on small tracts, it will unquestionably yield hand- 
somely where labor and fertilizer and brains go 
into the job. 

It is a w^holesome country in which to live. The 
people of Florida are not a whit behind the fore- 
most sections of the Union in their advocacy of 
schools, churches, refinement, culture, social ad- 
vancement, public improvements, good roads, 
loyalty to the nation and its traditions, civic right- 
eousness, and they have a deep and abiding vener- 
ation for the home life. 



172 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

There is a picturesque enchantment about the 
Florida home. Those little embellishments in fix- 
ing up the grounds, those touches of refinement 
and distinction which are wrought out with labori- 
ous effort in more rigorous latitudes, and done 
sometimes in spite of Nature's protest, come nat- 
urally and unbidden in Florida, because the wealth 
of tropic verdure lends an air of fairyland to every 
scene. You have waked up some frosty morning 
and found the whole of nature draped in white 
and gleaming trappings wrought out during the 
night by the frost. The boughs of the trees, the 
dry leaves, the grass, the wires, the house tops 
were all covered with a filmy drapery of white 
and around all was a heavy fog which made all 
the earth seem unreal and fantastic. You get the 
same effect in Florida when you see the tall pine, 
or the gnarled cypress or the wide spreading water 
oak hanging heavy with festoons of that weird 
pirate, the Spanish moss. Add to this the charm 
of fifty varieties of the palm family, the gaudy 
poinciana, the graceful eucalyptus, the breath of 
the orange trees, the enchantment of mirror-like 
lakes, and even the most unromantic can see that 
nature has furnished in this half tropic land all 
the essentials for ideal dwelling places. 

And, surely, not even the dullest materialist but 
that will admit that, as a country, we need a tonic. 
"We have been traveling too fast. The nation 
needs more rest and relaxation and recuperation 



'' IT'S UP TO YOU '' 173 

and less patent medicines and massage parlors and 
sanitariums. It should take this rest during the 
rigorous months of winter. It needs sun baths 
and serene interviews with mother nature rather 
than society stunts, parades on the Board Walk, 
and the gay frivolities of fashionable watering 
places— places where water is ofttimes unknown. 
We go at a killing pace, tear down the tissues. We 
unravel the nerve centers. We expose our throats 
and impair our lungs. We dress foolishly and 
face sleet and rain and snow and blizzard and fog 
and ice, until nature quits trying and we seek the 
doctor. 

Florida is a tonic for the sick. It is no magic 
healing spring. It has no distinct fountain of 
youth. It simply has a monopoly from November 
till April on the world's supply of sunshine and 
blue skies and warm breezes. For that reason a 
million hard-worked, excitable, nervous Americans 
would make the best investment of their lives if, 
when the first chill blasts begin to blow from out 
the North country, they would close down their 
desks, bid good-bye to their business perplexities 
and transplant themselves for three or four 
months to the land of the lakes. They would come 
back to their duties in early spring renewed and 
invigorated. 

The man who has made and saved his money, 
and who has cherished a dream all through the 
years of a quiet spot in which to spend his sun- 



174 WHAT ABOUT FLORIDA? 

set days, is going to Florida. A wonderful com- 
pany of these are already there. Here is the first 
impression of one of them and the way many of 
them feel and how they write back home: 

"Well, wife, IVe found the promised land, 

I hove in here today. 
Slid from an iceberg, through the snow 

Kerplunk into middle of May. 

I've always hesitated some, 

A handin' out my hand 
To any of those blamed crack shots 

Of Lee and Jackson's band. 

Thought they wuz slow, and lazy like, 

An' offish, an' some proud: 
Fact is, in '63 they wus 

A darn pestiferous crowd. 

But, pshaw, the welcome that I got 

Wuz so spontayous that 
It knocked my ol' time prejudis 

Into a small cocked hat. 

The land's jes like a picture book 

Held up before your eyes. 
You'd think the trainman set you off 

Right smack in Paradise. 

There's great big palms a settin' round, 
They must come scand'lous low, 

An' flowers, an' orange trees, an' things 
That makes a scrumptious show. 



''IT'S UP TO YOU'' 175 

The homes are not big palaces, 

Like castles on the Rhine, 
But, By Heck, they've got comfort writ 

All over every line. 

I saw big fields of garden sass. 

All green, row after row. 
And couldn't realize that you 

Are back home, shovelin ' snow. 

An' when the stars peeped out last night, 

An' the soothin' south wind blew, 
All that it lacked of the Garden of Eden 

Was that I didn't have you. 

Now wife I '11 tell you what I 've done, 

I jes made up my mind 
That this land's good enough for us. 

The purtiest spot we '11 find. 

I bought a little place today 

The others all bought, too, 
An ' give my orders for a house, 

Jes right for me and you. 

So, pack the things, an' come on down, 

Fer Goodness sake, be spry, 
I'm thawed out now, and feelin' fine. 

Up there I 'd freeze and die. 

You know our race will soon be run. 

We 've faced the storms together. 
The balance of our trip we '11 have 

Fair skies an ' summer weather. ' ' 



^!!illlill!illlillilllllj|[i!!llllililllllllllllllilllllill^^ 




PERHAPS no part of the habit- 
able Globe has been as indis- 
creetly praised and as blatantly 
maligned as Florida— The Author 
has spent many years investigating 
the conditions in Florida^ and here 
SETS FORTH THE FACTS so 
that the man who contemplates the 
purchase of land, or who is consid- 
ering a winter home, or who seeks 
investment or who merely is look- 
ing for information may have an 
uncolored view of the State from an 
authoritative and unbiased source* 



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